


Well Adjusted

by pthalo



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: "weeds and the occasional rat" does not a healthy diet make so he's malnourished post-skip, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brigid is populated with some OCs, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Dimitri Is Not Well, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, Felix Works Through His Issues, Multi, Post-Canon, Seasickness, and a dash of just being an asshole and regretting it later, kind of a medieval road trip if you squint, specifically OCD/PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:27:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22060066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pthalo/pseuds/pthalo
Summary: After the war, Felix goes to Brigid. He figures some things out while he's there.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 40
Kudos: 96





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! I'm getting a head start on my new year's resolutions, which include 1) hide/avoid less and 2) do more things I actually enjoy, SO I'm posting proper fanfic for the first time since? 2010 maybe? 
> 
> I played AM first (can you tell), and this fic was conceived about two (2) mins into my subsequent CF playthrough, when I realized that Petra and Felix had been robbed of a platonic support chain. 
> 
> Unfortunately for Felix, I am firmly of the belief that he needs to deal with his shit before he can have a schmoopy happy ending in the middle of a blue lions poly tangle. That's the endgame of this fic btw, despite it very much starting as onesided Felix/Emotional Maturity. I figured it would be a little rude to tag for ships that wouldn't properly show up for a long time yet? This fic isn't fully written yet, so the current plan is to update the tags (thoroughly) as they become relevant. This is very much a story centered on learning how to thrive after just scraping by for years, so there's gonna be an emphasis on cathartic grief & pining, but that's really the full extent of the angst you can expect. Anything that doesn't fall into those categories will be tagged for, but _please_ let me know if you think I missed something. And frankly, if you have specific triggers that you're worried about, feel free to ask if they'll show up at any point in the fic. I know that life & I'm not here to surprise anyone with a bad time.

Everyone handles things differently. 

Sylvain, for example, proposes to Mercedes mere hours after Enbarr falls. Later that day, red-faced and overjoyed and still pretending that his heart made it out of the war unscathed, he tells Felix that about half of the delay had just been trying to figure out her ring size. He also tells Felix that he’d been planning this out for the better part of a year, which both comforts and unsettles Felix for reasons he is more than happy to turn a blind eye to. 

But Sylvain proposes, and Mercedes accepts, and Sylvain turns his radiant smile to the professor to ask if they’ve ever officiated a wedding on two hours notice before. 

Byleth has not, but they also hadn’t ever taught before coming to Garreg Mach, and they don’t seem too phased by the challenge.

The Boar, of all fucking people, attempts to be the voice of reason. 

“Oh come now, _Sylvain_ ,” Dimitri chides, “I know you’re impatient, but Mercedes deserves better- if you just wait a few days even, the two of you can have a nice, traditional-”

“ _Mercedes_ deserves a say in this, I think,” the woman in question says, laying a delicate hand on the boar’s elbow to interject. The room goes quiet, and then-

“Hang tradition,” Mercedes says, her voice ringing out as sweetly and absolutely unyielding as ever. “Professor, Dimitri, will the two of you say a few words to make things official?” 

Sylvain’s shining smile wobbles violently for a moment, but he’s mostly able to blink back his overwhelmed tears in the small pause created by Dimitri telling Mercedes that he, “would be _honored_ ,” in a hushed, achingly sincere voice. 

As it is, Sylvain still makes a small wet noise in his throat before he can choke out, “Holy shit, babe, I knew you were the one.”

+++

So Sylvain copes with a wedding planned two hours in advance of the ceremony, and it works out magnificently, actually. 

After no less than three tense games of axe-sword-lance with Ingrid, Felix stands as best man, feeling surreal in his somewhat-threadbare-but-unbloodied spare tunic and leggings, with two golden rings in his pocket and the sword of Zoltan at his hip. Annette wiggles her fingers at him from her place as Maid of Honor on the other side of the makeshift altar, and Felix only feels a little silly for waving back. 

The ribbons braided into her coppery hair are Mercedes’s work, and despite her typically sunny demeanor, she looks happier than he’s seen her in years. He can’t wait to hear the songs she’s going to write about all this. 

Byleth stands at the altar, looking as unflappable as ever, despite the hastily woven flower crown on their head and the book of Seiros in their hand. Dimitri stands somewhat awkwardly behind their shoulder, on board now that he’s certain Mercedes isn’t being cheated out of her dream wedding, but still too tall to stand under the little archway without stooping a bit. 

Felix wants to laugh at the boar’s expense, but… they’ve just won a war on impossible odds, their friends are getting married, and it’s the first time he’s seen Dimitri without his armor on in ages, and it’s doing… well, it’s doing something to Felix. The laugh doesn’t ever make it past his throat, but his mouth doesn’t quite get the memo, and curls halfway into a smile anyway. 

Because things can never just be simple, Dimitri sees the accidental not-smile, and Felix snaps his eyes back to Annette before he has to witness another goddessforsaken second of the sheepish, delighted little grin he gets in return.

As always, the boar’s awful face seems to get imprinted on the insides of his eyelids anyway. 

Bastard.

When Felix looks out over the small gathered crowd, he finds Dedue giving him one of those inscrutable looks he favors. After a moment, Felix looks back to Annette, and Dedue looks back to Ashe. As ever, Felix is not quite sure what Dedue has seen.

The rest of the ceremony goes fine. The happy couple look uncomfortably radiant, and mercifully, Byleth quickly gives up the pretense of having ever actually _read_ the holy book, and transitions from stiff scripture readings to short stories about the couple. Felix isn’t entirely sure how the professor knows half of the things they do, but by the end of the ceremony Mercedes’s crystal bell laugh is echoing through the air and Sylvain’s face is as red as his hair, and Felix thinks he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

+++

Felix’s coping mechanisms, on the other hand, don’t succeed so much as they continue.

He certainly doesn’t have any hopes for a morale-boosting post-war marriage, and even if he did, he doesn’t think he really... could, right now. 

Over the next few weeks, Felix tries to work through the- the whatever it is that’s been happening to him since the war ended. 

Traveling back to Fhirdiad and spreading news that the war has ended as they went was- nice enough, he supposed. A bit like a standard march, but without the constant, urgent reality of war hanging over their heads at all hours. Either way, it keeps him busy, and he doesn’t much mind. 

But then, they arrive back “home” to riotous applause and nothing to _do_ but politics, and that’s when everything really goes to shit for Felix. 

He defaults, as ever, to training.

The training hall in Fhirdiad seems so much smaller than it did when he was a child learning his first forms in it, not to mention emptier after he chases out the would-be flatterers and children pretending that _knighthood_ is something worth aspiring to. 

It’s stifling. He can never seem to breathe easy under its vaulted ceilings, but, somehow it’s worse everywhere else. 

He still makes time for bathing and eating, but begrudgingly. Tea parties were a necessity to keep morale up during the war, so he could fight more efficiently, but why waste time on them now? He’s better off working himself to the bone in peace and quiet than picking petty fights with his friends just because he can’t control himself. 

(He’d snapped at _Flayn_ the other day, and he still wasn’t sure how to apologize. _Hi Flayn, sorry I told you to fuck off for trying to cheer me up with that silly fruit chopping game we used to play at the academy. It was very thoughtful of you, I’m just having some sort of chronic meltdown that has no apparent end in sight._ No, thank you. She couldn’t be mad forever, probably.) 

(Seteth, on the other hand…) 

And it wasn’t always awful to be in the training hall. He couldn’t spend nearly every waking hour there if it were. Sure, sometimes it’s long past midnight and he’s still frantically striking at training dummies, thinking in circles about the scary stories Glenn told him sometimes after dark, and it’s nightmarish. 

Glenn’s voice- deeper than his own, even today, now that Felix is older than Glenn ever was- would take the most solemn, worldly tone, like he really was trying to impart words of wisdom to his little brother instead of tormenting him for laughs. He’d tell Felix that he had to be very, _very_ careful never to set foot in mushroom rings, never to pass a hollow tree without knocking on it, never to skip stones on the pond if the moon was full. He’d tell Felix that the unwitting travelers who sometimes disappeared into the Faerghus wilderness had died from more mystical and sinister causes than mere exposure to the elements. 

That trusted voice had made it sound so _real_ that he could be forced to dance until his feet were bloody pulp beneath him, his legs wearing away into the ground while the wild fae music grew louder. 

Somehow, in the sputtering torchlight of the training hall, the childhood terror remains fresh, pressed like a flower between the pages of his mind. Unlike the fear, which was still sharp and clear and ripe for reliving, the details had long since begun to wear away from his other childhood memories.

It was a struggle, now, to recall the way his brother would eventually throw his head back and laugh when little Felix stamped his foot and wailed, “Stop _scaring_ me! You’re _mean_ , Glenn!” And Felix knows, objectively, that he used to feel _safe_ when Glenn promised to always protect his little brother from the beasts and banshees prowling the night. But safety has been little more than a fairy tale since Glenn died along with his promises, and Felix can’t quite remember what it felt like. 

Somehow, it’s getting harder and harder to remember anything about Glenn clearly, harder to remember the way their mother would smile, playing at stern but undeniably fond, harder to remember the way their father- 

...Sometimes it’s nightmarish like that, and he isn’t sure what compels him to stay.

But other times, he gets visitors. 

He’s just arrived and started going through rote forms when Felix hears a heavy noise behind him, and whirls, bracing for another of Dimitri’s too-earnest attempts to rekindle- 

Felix parries an incoming sword purely on reflex, realizing that he was bracing for the wrong kind of blow entirely. 

It takes him a moment to realize that Petra must have jumped down from the rafters to make so much noise with such a petite frame, and when he does, his laugh knocks the rest of the strange, restless energy out of him. Petra’s responding grin is as sharp as her blade.

It’s no waltz, but they dance. 

As the minutes wear on, they relax out of their efficient, clean battle stances into showy forms with ornamental flourishes. Petra does a flip that leaves her belly wide open, and Felix doesn’t take the opening. He almost can’t help but do a jaunty little flip of his own in return.

She laughs, then launches into a- well, Felix has a hard time following it exactly. It started as a handstand, but then twisted into a…?

Felix throws his training sword into the dirt behind them.

“Show me how you did that.”

+++

Tragically, Petra is a coward who refuses to teach Felix every last one of Brigid’s martial arts techniques in one sitting. 

Still, Felix can admit that he’s had worse afternoons. He’s covered in sweat and dirt, his body is tired but for once his head is clear, he’s got new techniques to work on, and things only get better when Petra brings out the pouch of spicy dried meat that she keeps on her belt.

“Petra,” Felix starts, pausing to tear off another bite, “have I told you lately that I tolerate you?”

She hums agreeably before answering. “You have, and I have been telling you to “suck it up” and just say that we are having great friendship between us.”

Felix nudges her with an elbow, half teasing and half alarmingly sincere when he says, “Nice slang.”

“No shit.”

Felix isn’t sure what face he’s making when he whips his head around to look at her, but Petra laughs at it regardless. 

“Ha! Ashe was telling me that it would take surprise of you.”

“Our Ashe, teaching foreign royalty bad words? Look how far he’s come.” The words curl fond and comfortable out of his mouth, and he feels immense relief to be able to exist like a normal person for once, so of course Petra takes the conversation in a different direction entirely.

“Look how far we have all come.”

Felix looks at himself, snacking on dried meat in the heart of a city he once did not think he’d live to see retaken. Looks at himself sitting comfortably with the princess of Brigid, who has apparently noticed his poor adaptation to post-war life and taken pity on him so thoughtfully that he’s… unsure that he could prove it was pity, if pressed. Looks at himself feeling halfway human for the first time in- weeks? …Months? 

( _Has it been years?_ )

“…Yeah. Yeah.”

The silence they lapse into isn’t exactly uncomfortable, but Felix breaks it anyway.

“Last month, I was ready to die. I think it was easier than this whole brave new world thing,” he takes another bite of jerky, mechanical at best, trying hard to convince himself that he’s not saying what he’s saying, “Or, I was used to it, at least.”

He’s not sure where the words are coming from, even as they leave his mouth. He chews on his jerky, just to have something to do other than keep spouting embarrassingly honest nonsense. He’s already exhausted with himself for bothering to state the obvious, as though Petra hasn’t already seen right through him. He’s exhausted with himself in general, really.

Petra makes a contemplative noise and finishes her last bite before she speaks again. 

“And what will you be doing next month?” is her unassuming response.

Felix’s jaw tenses so fast he thinks it would have made an audible noise if it weren’t for the jerky between his teeth. 

“More of this, probably,” he spits with more venom than is strictly warranted, suddenly hopelessly enraged at his own shortcomings once again. “Fraldarius needs a duke, but I’m hardly fit to rule anything if I can’t even- I mean, look at me, I can barely handle basic training, much less sitting in my father’s office and, and-”

Petra, to his enormous relief, calmly cuts off his sputtering before he can fully work himself into tears. 

“I am having great joy that Brigid does not use so much paperworking. But I am nervous too, to return. My father’s workplaces have very long now been cleaned, but it is still...”

When she trails off, staring past the opposite wall, Felix is glad that at least some communication doesn’t need eye contact.

He leans his shoulder against hers, briefly, for as long as he thinks he can stand it, and mutters, “Yeah, it is.”

+++

When Petra returns two days later, it’s with something to say. Felix sees it in her stance the moment she walks in, but allows her to take her time instead of demanding answers immediately. 

After nearly an hour of correcting his footwork and demonstrating the next set of moves from Brigid’s dancelike fighting style, she cuts to the chase. 

_Finally_ , Felix thinks, glad to drop pretenses even if he’s not entirely sure he’s going to like what she has to say. From the set of her shoulders, he’s even already guessing that he will actively _dislike_ what she’ll say, but he figures he owes her the benefit of the doubt. He gestures to the edge of the sparring area, where they once again sit side by side.

“I have been talking to Dimitri since we last spoke- _peace, Felix, I am not done speaking_.”

He’s already on his feet, suddenly uncomfortably aware that the hour leading up to this was meant to settle _his_ nerves, not hers, and that the effort was apparently so easily undone, but- but Petra really is one of his dearest friends, and she so rarely takes on that commanding tone of voice that he finds himself almost compelled to sit back down. 

Apparently satisfied that he won’t bolt, Petra continues.

“I have discussed with him my return to Brigid. I was not ready to leave Fódlan straight from Enbarr, and I am, perhaps still less ready to leave than I would like being. But I have done what I can to save Fódlan, and my people are needing me. So I will not be postponing my return to Brigid much longer.”

Felix does not, in fact, like what she has come here to say.

“...This is a goodbye then,” Felix mutters, already overwhelmed by the first taste of a feeling that he knows runs deeper and wider than he can wade through. Brigid is a long, long way from Fhirdiad. Even if she’s not dead, she might very well be joining the ranks of people he will never see again.

“I do not want it to be,” Petra says firmly, the tattoo on her cheek scrunching slightly with the intensity of her expression. She grabs both of his hands in both of hers. He stares mutely at their hands instead of making eye contact; they’re more scar than skin in some places, and if he were a man of any poetry, that might mean something to him.

“I have been discussing ambassadors with Dimitri. I wish for the countries- for the _peoples_ that raised me to be in accord rather than in standoff. I have been requesting some of our friends who grew up in the Alliance and Empire to go with me as well, but there are no Faerghus-born in the delegation yet.” 

“Felix,” she says, “I want you to be fixing that.”

Felix feels steadily more like each word from her mouth is a tuft of cotton stuffing his head. He nods, faintly, without quite meaning to, and recognizes the look on Petra’s face as the same one she gets she’s hunting and knows she’s closing in on the kill. 

“If you are agreeing, we can leave in three days time. The horseriding to the coast will take longer than the boatriding to Brigid, and the seas are gentle this time of year. You can be learning the techniques of Brigid from true masters, and-”

“Petra,” he mumbles, trying and failing to stem the rising tide of her words. 

“-bring home the understanding of my people, and-”

“Petra,” Felix tries again, feeling about a thousand years old, “I can’t.”

He swears he can almost hear the determined little furrow appear in her brow. 

“Can’t or do not want to?”

“ _Can’t_ , Petra, you _know_ I can’t. I need to get my shit together and go home, not take a vacation. My uncle sends another letter every few days requesting my assistance managing our lands now that I’m not off fighting a war. How _exactly_ do you propose I tell him that I finally left Fhirdiad but fucked off to Brigid instead?” 

He tries to pull his hands out of hers, but even he can admit it’s only a token attempt, and Petra’s grip holds firm.

“Felix,” she says, too direct to be comfortable even as he steadfastly avoids her piercing gaze, “I have talked to Dimitri about this as well. He has granted you leave, and will be making arrangements to hire an assistant for your uncle if you choose to go.” 

It is a true testament to Felix’s emotional exhaustion that only half of his face curls into a snarl at her mention of the boar. “And I suppose he’ll be wanting me to fall over myself thanking him, pretending like that makes everything fine between us? Like he never-”

“Felix,” Petra cuts him off, clearly exasperated, “even I am knowing him better than that. You know Dimitri would accept nothing from you that is not freely given.”

…Felix can neither bring himself to continue making a foolish argument nor concede that Petra is obviously right. Silence wells up between them.

“Well,” Petra holds his hands briefly tighter before finally releasing them, “you need not be decided right now, but, please think of what you want to do. Brigid- _I_ would be having great joy to have you as an ambassador. But it is your choice that matters.”

She stands, pats some of the dust off of her legs, and makes her way to the exit.

She’s not even halfway there when Felix uses his wretched voice to say he’ll go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "*eats jerky contemplatively*" is a real line that I really wrote in my outline, which is titled "tropical punch flavored fic bits"  
> I am a serious person.
> 
> PS, oh god I accidentally hit post while I was still working on the tags/summary, I'm suffering


	2. Chapter 2

Petra gifts him space to breathe after their discussion in the training grounds, but slips an envelope under his door that night. 

Attached is a packing list, an itinerary, a brief overview of Brigid’s political situation- all of which he immediately sets on his desk without any particular plans to revisit- and a note inviting him to breakfast in the gardens the following morning, which he reads blearily before throwing it on top of the pile. Something about discussing cultural concerns. 

Felix isn’t sure how many hours he spent in the training hall after Petra left, but he is vaguely aware that it was probably too many, because he barely has the energy to remove his boots before he collapses into bed. 

+++

Petra is giving him that mildly displeased look that he hates, and Felix grips one of his sword pommels defensively. 

Breakfast had gone smoothly enough at first with the two of them sipping four-spice tea and trying to win over a disinterested tabby with table scraps, but they’d spent the last ten minutes arguing about Felix’s swords and getting nowhere. 

Or rather, actively making the situation worse.

He is watching himself fuck this up more by the minute, but he can’t see any way out of the hole he’s digging. Even the otherwise pleasant dappled sunlight falling onto the patio is starting to feel uncomfortably loud against the skin of his face, much less the abrasive chafe of his friend’s polite distaste. 

“Stop wasting my time. I said no, and I meant it. I don’t give a damn about your _customs_ , I’ve kept a sword at my hip since I was a child, and I don’t intend to change _my_ customs just to cater to the delicate sensibilities of some hypothetical fools I’ve never even met.”

At his latest refusal, Petra looks about two hairs away from decking him, and an ugly part of Felix _desperately_ wants to see her try. The idea of settling this with a spar has sudden and overwhelming appeal. It’s been a while since he studied grappling in earnest, but he still remembers the electric thrill of throwing punches and is rapidly losing sight of any other goals. 

She jumps to her feet, and for a moment Felix thinks he’ll get his fight, but she only paces away from the little table they’re sitting at like she can’t stand the sight of him. Abruptly, she rounds on him, but while she jabs one pointed finger at him, neither hand strikes. Her other hand remains fisted but tight to her side, and the wild static in his ears is offended by her restraint.

“Maybe it is normal for you to be walking around Faerghus armed to the teeth in times of peace,” Petra’s face says that she sincerely doubts this, “but my people will only be seeing you as a warrior who has not yet come home from war.” 

Felix sticks his jaw out insolently as she speaks, but she still won’t hit him. Her refusal to drop the formalities and just fight him is rapidly becoming almost as irritating as her insistence that he not carry his weapons in Brigid. 

“Am I not?” he demands, rising to his feet, panic starting to thicken his throat because she still won’t hit him. He’s giving her every opening, every excuse, and she still won’t just- _why won’t she_ -

Petra doesn’t respond immediately, and Felix feels his voice pitch creakily as he demands, “ _Am I not?_ ” again, louder, hating himself and the way that Petra’s fists are starting to unclench at her sides, hating the way her face is turning to confusion and something a little too sad and knowing to name. 

This time, Felix turns away. 

The little tile-paved patio they’re arguing on is one of two places in Fhirdiad he’s ever accused of having a nice view. Faerghus is having an unseasonably warm Horsebow moon this year, and the summer’s end sunlight makes the castle’s garden look idyllic even as he glares out at it. Unlike the rose gardens of Gloucester or the topiary mazes of Enbarr, Fhirdiad’s castle gardens mainly grow food, but everything flowers before it goes to seed.

He remembers dutifully pinching buds off of the basil and thyme with Dimitri until their thumbnails had long since gone green. Sylvain usually skived off this particular task by repeating the gardener’s dirty sayings and cheerfully accepting lectures from Ingrid until the work had all been done for them, but to Felix it had been a favorite chore. The four of them could almost always beg some treats from the matronly head chef after they’d finished helping out. 

Many of those bygone summer days had started with playing tag in the garden with Dimitri while their dead fathers took tea at the very table he’s just pushed away from. Bittersweet at best, the thought snaps him back to the present, which is still engulfed in a tense silence. 

It is abundantly clear that the moment has passed, but he has no idea where they stand now that the dust has settled. Petra shifts behind him, and his head is too fogged up to properly guess or dread what she might say next.

( _Has he ruined this too?_ )

It should be a relief, but he mostly just feels cold as he listens to her say, quiet and steady, “Felix, you are misunderstanding me. I am only wishing for you to make your first impression the way you wish to make it.”

He still mostly just feels cold as he eventually drags out a rusty, unlovable, “Sorry,” from some unused corner of his vocabulary.

Felix looks out at the garden for another beat, just as sunny as it was in his memory with none of the warmth, and he thinks she must do the same. 

“Think of it as nothing,” Petra eventually says, in that same measured voice, giving him an out and going back to her seat in one fell swoop. She gestures to his empty chair.

He sits.

He’s not sure how much of it is Petra’s generous heart, and how much is just that a cloudless late summer day will cast near anything in a gentler light, but Petra seems to have forgiven him by the time she tries to restart their conversation.

“If you will not be disarmed, will you be considering a different blade?”

Felix weighs the idea for a moment, then sighs. “I’m Faerghus born, but I’ve no talent for lances, if that’s what you’re getting at,” and then, because he can’t help himself, he mutters, “Believe me, my father tried.”

“No,” Petra shakes her head, braids catching the dappled sunlight, “Not a lance, but there is, ah, hmm. I do not know that there is a Fódlan word for it? But there is a style of blade in Brigid that is like a short sword shaped for cutting trees and vines, instead of for cutting enemies.”

“Hm.”

“It is still a serviceable weapon,” Petra is quick to add, apparently taking his lack of outright refusal as a cue to continue, “but it would not be getting such attention from my people. They are a commonly needed tool, not a symbol of fighting. Most adults wear a hunting dagger and a- I will call it a vine sword- on their belts; it mostly shows a readiness or enjoyment of hunting.”

The idea of a compromise is... not unappealing, but the idea of a new style of blade to master has the greater draw. Still, if the ‘vine sword’ she means turns out to be a glorified butter knife, he’s not sure...

“Hmm.”

Petra, shrewd as ever, unhooks what Felix had always assumed was a scimitar from her belt.

“I will be lending you mine then, to practice with, and to see if you would like your own.”

Felix thinks, once again, that he tolerates Petra very much.

+++

Sylvain does not make a face at the state of Felix’s suite when he comes to wake Felix just before sunrise on the day of the voyage, but it is very obviously a near thing. They don’t actually address it, but while Felix gets dressed in his traveling clothes, he notes a quietly fond suspicion that his rooms will be spotless when he returns. 

Sylvain does, however, look mildly appalled that Felix has to pack his trunk before they can go down to the gates. 

“You really didn’t pack _anything_ ahead of time?” Sylvain asks, as though he’s not literally looking into the empty travel trunk Felix has just thrown open. 

Felix snorts at the look on his friend’s face; trust Sylvain to fuss over details. 

“Some clothes, some toiletries, a blade; it’s not exactly a long list,” Felix says, throwing a few pairs of pants into the chest and moving on to tops, “I’m already halfway done.”

“You could pack writing supplies too, you know,” Sylvain says, sounding for all the world like he’s pouting, though Felix can’t imagine why-

Felix’s hands go abruptly still against the white fabric of his favorite training shirt.

He thinks of the letters he and Sylvain exchanged over the five years following the fall of Garreg Mach. He thinks of how much it meant to him every time he received a letter sealed with the Gautier signet, how much more bearable the war seemed with news of his oldest friend’s latest escapades, and he has the supremely belated realization that he... probably should have written back more often than he actually did.

Shit.

“…Uh, yes, I’ll, do that,” Felix says lamely, after clearing his throat not once but twice. It takes him another awkward moment of staring blankly at his shirts and feeling embarrassed about his life choices before his hands remember that he was supposed to be packing. 

Sylvain’s voice contains no small amount of wonder when he says, “That was a genuine surprise to you just now, wasn’t it.” He doesn’t even say it as a question, the bastard.

Rather than answer, Felix throws the rest of his gathered clothing into the trunk and steps into the bathroom to fetch his toiletries. Sylvain’s smug, airy laugh follows him out of the room. Ultimately though, Felix decides that he can’t be too mad because Sylvain dutifully packs said writing supplies for him once he’s done laughing at Felix’s expense. 

After all is said and done, Felix buckles Petra’s machete onto his belt and closes the door behind them. Sylvain insists on carrying Felix’s trunk between the two of them, even after Felix lifts it over his head to remind Sylvain that he is, in fact, perfectly capable of doing so on his own. He only (begrudgingly) agrees when it becomes clear that Sylvain will just wheedle him about it the whole way down to the castle gates if he doesn’t give in. He can (also begrudgingly) admit that Sylvain’s pleased smile makes it somewhat worthwhile.

The predawn light is bright enough that they don’t need torches to see the rest of the travelers at the gates, but barely. Castle staff are milling about as their friends are talking to each other in quiet clusters by the three carriages lined up in the courtyard.

Even out of armor and hunched over slightly, Dimitri dwarfs Petra as they talk with one of the carriage drivers at the head of the caravan. Felix sees the colorless light on his face shift as Petra points out their approach, but he staunchly refuses to talk to the Boar this early in the morning. Instead, Felix steers himself and Sylvain toward the next cluster, standing some ten feet away from Dimitri and Petra. 

At a distance, Mercedes and Annette appear to be cornering Bernadetta against the side of a wagon with ill intent. As they get closer, the depths of their crimes are revealed: Mercedes is trying to give Bernadetta a package of fresh-baked sweets and Annette is attempting to strong-arm the archer into accepting them despite her numerous shrieked protests that she, “couldn’t possibly-!” 

Felix’s short laugh alerts their panicking friend to their presence. Her fear-glazed eyes skid right past Felix and land on Sylvain, who is still dutifully helping to carry the trunk. The minute she sees him, Bernadetta does that flailing escape maneuver (the one that she _still_ refuses to teach Felix) to slip past Mercedes and Annette, and flings herself behind him as though she needs a physical shield from their sinister advances. Before she’s even finished wailing a plea for help, Bernadetta has installed herself nearly _atop_ Sylvain’s shoulders like a spooked housecat.

Sylvain, surprisingly steady on his feet given recent developments, grins over his shoulder at her to say, “ _Wow_ Bern, usually women are a little less literal when they say they want to climb me like a tree-”

This spurs a round of _Sylvain_ ’s so exasperated that even Dimitri looks over to squint disapprovingly with his one good eye, despite having missed the context. But, Sylvain’s tasteless joke does also have the effect of talking Bernadetta down, literally and figuratively. Felix isn’t quite sure he’ll ever understand their friendship, but Bernadetta certainly does seem heartened by Sylvain’s heavy hand resting on her shoulder. 

A very vague part of Felix makes a very vague mental note that he wants to be more like that, but the idea, like so many others, seems to melt into nothingness under any closer scrutiny. He’s briefly distracted trying to decipher his own stray thought, but after a moment he brushes away questions and answers alike to tune back into the conversation.

Sylvain has apparently convinced a now intensely embarrassed Bernadetta that Mercedes’s gift contains neither poison nor any barbed intent. Annette is animatedly gushing about how jealous she is of the traveling delegation, which Felix knows is partly true, but mostly just so Bernadetta doesn’t have to struggle to make small talk. 

For a time, Felix is content to simply observe his friends having a nice conversation, but at some point an important realization breaks through the fuzz of gentle affection Felix has every time he sees Annette helping someone out. 

Annette is in the middle of a charmingly enthusiastic explanation of why flying with magic doesn’t tend to trigger seasickness the way travel-by-ship does when Felix turns to Bernadetta and blurts out, “Wait, you’re going to Brigid too?” 

Annette makes a face like she’s gathering steam to lecture Felix on what a terrible person he is for the umpteenth time, but Bernadetta just sort of squints at him around Sylvain. 

“Didn’t... you get Petra’s briefing? Mine listed you as the fourth delegate, did yours not list me?” Her face goes ashen. “Oh no, why didn’t yours list me-”

Someone has to cut her off before she can spiral too far, so he snaps, “Quit it,” which would be the end of it with anyone else, but he’s forgotten to mind his tone, and he watches with no small horror as her words just... evaporate. 

He hates to see her lose what little confidence she’s built up since getting out from under her father’s thumb, and it’s this hatred that pushes him to backpedal, however clumsily.

“I’m sure you’re listed on the briefing, I just,” _shit, what does he say now, he can’t just say he ‘just’ discarded the damn thing without reading it-_

“-decided to wait to read it until I was on the ship. Long journeys are boring,” Felix lies, somewhat badly, on the fly.

He says this out loud to Bernadetta, but he thinks _don’t say a fucking word_ very loudly at Sylvain, who knows full well that Felix has exactly zero briefings packed in his luggage. 

(Sylvain, wisely, does not say a word, and thus lives to see another day.)

All the same, Bernadetta looks less like she believes him and more like she believes that he probably has a decent reason to lie when she says, “Uh, okay?”

For once, it’s a genuine relief to sense Dimitri appear at his elbow. He walks too quietly now that he’s not constantly in armor- a recent development which makes Felix feel both intensely relieved and uneasy- but his presence pulls attention away from Felix like a magnet, which is a more convenient out than he could have otherwise hoped for. 

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” infuriatingly, Dimitri _does_ sound apologetic, which is ridiculous given that he hasn't done anything, “but has anyone seen Dorothea this morning? Petra hasn’t heard from her since-”

“Over here!” Dorothea herself calls from across the courtyard, “I’m here, sorry for the wait.” 

Dorothea has not one, but two trunks, for some reason. She’s carrying the smaller one on her hip while Ingrid carries the other behind her. Felix isn’t quite sure how or why Ingrid was roped into carrying Dorothea’s luggage for her, but he’s nonetheless impressed at how easy she makes it look. She only staggers a little, despite being almost completely obscured by the enormous trunk she’s carrying. It takes two of the carriage drivers to relieve Ingrid of the weight. 

(Sylvain only shrugs and mouths _it’s Ingrid_ when Felix shoots him a pointed look. Which, fair. Felix doesn’t much fancy trying to tell her how much luggage she should carry either.) 

“Ah, wonderful!” Petra says, “Ignatz is already in the carriage, so we can go whenever you all have said your farewells.” 

Petra then goes to join Ignatz with Bernadetta and Dorothea in tow, which leaves Felix standing in a circle of his closest friends with no idea what in the hell to do.

Sylvain is looking at him so expectantly that Felix’s brain stops working and suggests _just go for a handshake_ as though that’s even remotely appropriate for the situation.

Fortunately, Sylvain bats his awkward hand away with a good-natured swat and goes for a hug. Unfortunately, he also picks Felix up and spins him around like a doll, bemoaning how much he’ll miss Felix in an overwrought voice that would be more at home in an opera. Sylvain’s terminal lapse in judgement earns him a slew of punches, insults, and demands to be put down. When his feet are back on stable ground, Felix punches Sylvain’s arm once more for the hell of it. 

Felix stands, red-faced and fuming in the face of Sylvain’s unrepentant grin while he accepts much more reasonable and sensible hugs from the girls. He also gets a kiss on the cheek from both Mercedes and Annette (though Annette does also tug his ear and tell him not to cut her off again if he values his life) which just leaves... Dimitri.

Dimitri, who is standing off to the side and worrying at the edge of his eyepatch in a nervous gesture the Felix has come to hate. 

Dimitri, whose turn it clearly is to wish Felix goodbye. 

Dimitri, who is not initiating a goodbye, despite the increasingly expectant silence. 

“What, _you’re_ the only one smart enough to not force me into a hug? Unbelievable,” is out of Felix’s mouth in a scoff before he even quite realizes that he’s said it. 

( _The worst part_ , he thinks, _about standing in the middle of a circle of your closest friends, is that you can see all of their faces at once when they’re trying not to cringe at whatever pointlessly mean shit you’ve just said_.)

“Ah,” Dimitri starts, eloquently. The dawn light has taken on a rosy hue as they talked, but it’s not enough to cover how red he’s gone in the face, and his small, awkward smile is as stilted-but-earnest as it ever is around Felix these days. “Y-es? I, it seemed clear enough that- Felix, you must know that I would never impose-”

“ _You know Dimitri would accept nothing from you that is not freely given_ ,” echoes through his head. Today, Petra’s voice brings no comfort.

Felix is acutely aware that his voice is too brusque when he attempts to save Dimitri from having to make an actual statement out of his stacked platitudes. 

“Yes. Well,” _say something nice, for once in your fucking life, say something nice_ , “Thank you, for having some sense then.” 

With that botched attempt, the shriveled remains of his social graces give out entirely. He nods in acknowledgement to the general vicinity of Dimitri’s shins, picks up his trunk, carries it to the luggage wagon, and very carefully does not make any further eye contact with any of his friends. 

When he sits down next to Bernadetta in the less crowded traveling carriage, he makes it about four seconds before he drops his head into his hands and just, takes a moment to indulge in some good old-fashioned self-loathing.

Apparently familiar with this particular gesture, Bernadetta hands him a ball of yarn. She says only, “To keep your hands busy,” before turning back to her own project. 

He unravels a short length of the blue wool yarn to fiddle with, and thinks that maybe he tolerates her too.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Tags Have Changed! More info in the end notes if needed.

The yarn certainly helps, but as the hours wear on, Felix’s mind circles back to his last _real_ interaction with Dimitri like a vulture.

The tragedy of armor is that it will hold its shape regardless of whether or not anything is there to fill it out. Felix first learned that lesson when Glenn’s armor came home, dented and pierced but still outlining the last known shape of his brother.

His second lesson was on an otherwise pleasant spring morning several weeks before Gronder. Felix and Sylvain had gone looking for the professor, but accidentally found Manuela giving Dimitri a physical exam instead. They’d grown up together, so it wasn’t any particular shock to see Dimitri naked save for a towel over his lap, but it had been deeply disturbing to see the physical toll his lost years had taken on his body.

Sylvain handled it better. He’d balked hard on the threshold of the infirmary, briefly speechless at the scrappy, emaciated creature that had apparently been hiding under Dimitri’s omnipresent armor, but then he’d put on a wide, fake smile and asked Manuela productive questions.

_How much weight has he regained since returning to the monastery?_

_Do you think that proteins or starches would more efficiently fit calories into his shrunken stomach?_

_If we can’t make him take off the armor for more than twenty minutes at a time, how often should we heal the sores on his skin?_

_Would adding extra padding under the armor help enough to justify the restricted movement?_

_Does fish oil actually help speed recovery, or is that a myth?_

And so on.

While Sylvain problem-solved, Felix stared at the body before him and tried very hard to master his sudden nausea. Dimitri, for his part, stared hazily through the opposite wall. It occurred to Felix that he had no idea if Dimitri had been sedated or if this was just what the boar looked like without anger to animate it.

Felix hadn’t actually seen the scars under his eyepatch or littering his torso until just then, but mostly his eyes caught and held on the downy white hairs covering Dimitri’s forearms.

He couldn’t remember the proper medical term, but in Faerghus, people mostly called them snow hairs. They were only supposed to show up after a particularly bitter winter, when the food stores couldn’t be stretched to last until the thaw. Ingrid’s father and eldest brother had grown them one year when they were too young to really understand, but Felix had never seen them on any of his friends. The nobility considered it “improper” to see a hungry heir, as though hardship had anything to do with propriety.

For any number of reasons, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd was not supposed to have snow hairs, and the realization that he nonetheless _did_ broke something open in Felix.

He didn’t actually realize that tears were streaming down his face until the boar’s lone blue eye stopped chasing ghosts long enough to focus on him.

“I am sorry, old friend,” Dimitri’s tattered corpse told him, quiet and solemn. “I never meant to make you cry.”

In his ensuing fit of hysterical screaming, Felix had said… a lot of things.

His memories of the event were foggy, but he knew that ‘fuck you’ had been thrown around quite a bit, if less than ‘fuck your apologies’ had. Ignoring the stricken faces of their unwitting audience, he’d also demanded to know where Dimitri had been the last five years, why he hadn’t sought refuge in Fraldarius, and if it had been fun to do this to himself for no damn reason.

Dimitri had just stared somberly back at him, barely blinking. 

(Felix had once seen a profoundly drunk soldier stare at a recently emptied flask with much the same expression. Like he was looking at a tragedy, but an unavoidable one.)

And as awful as all of that was, the worst by far was how he’d sobbed, “ _I just want my friend back_ ,” like an absolute _child_ as Sylvain bodily removed him from the infirmary.

Later, _hours_ after Sylvain had first shuffled the two of them into the Cardinal’s room and locked the door so that Felix could have his breakdown in peace, they talked. In lieu of a handkerchief, Sylvain had given Felix his silly little ass cape to mop his face with, and in return Felix did his best to listen to his friend’s smooth, soothing voice. Sylvain had a rare talent for shaping problems into plans, and Felix’s voice was worn so thin that it didn’t seem so bad to just, listen, for once. 

Sitting on the floor underneath the bulletin board, tucked against Sylvain’s armored side, with one of Sylvain’s wide, warm hands on his shoulder and the other stroking his disheveled hair, his advice made sense. Felix’s head and heart were still pounding out the same adrenalized, guilty beat, faster now that the self-consciousness had set in, but Sylvain was coaxing a little optimism out of him, bit by bit, like he always did. It really did sound possible to apologize to Dimitri and Manuela for the verbal abuse once he was feeling a little more in control of himself. 

The thing was, Felix never really did feel more in control of himself.

Before the incident in the infirmary, he hadn’t cried since Glenn’s armor arrived home without him. Afterwards, he found himself near constantly on the edge of another breakdown, even when he had no reason to be.

And because Dimitri’s presence is one of the single greatest threats to his increasingly tenuous grip on composure, Felix bristles and flees every time he comes near. It’s been getting ridiculous of late, given how often Dimitri approaches him with that hopeful half-smile. 

Its not even as if Felix doesn’t _want_ to reconcile, now that a bit of humanity has bled back into the beast, he just, can’t. Either Dimitri offers him an olive branch and Felix panics, or Felix offers him an olive branch and panics anyway. 

He still hasn’t figured out how to talk to Dimitri since then, even though it’s been months. This morning’s send-off was just another bizarre non-conversation in their endless dance around each other.

He’s fully absorbed in gently banging his head against the windowpane when he remembers that he isn’t alone in the carriage.

Bernadetta squeaks, “Don’t kill me!” when he glances over, then looks contrite. “Um, sorry, I know you’re not going to kill me. It’s just a habit. Sorry.”

Felix does his best to school his face into something less dour.

“Is it a habit to apologize for everything too?” he asks, aiming for companionable and unable to tell if he’s succeeded.

“Haha! Yeah, I, yeah,” she gives another self deprecating little laugh, “I’m working on it. Raphael’s been helping me practice my people skills. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m usually better about that these days! It’s just that I’ve been _so nervous_ about this trip, you know?”

Felix doesn’t, really, but he tries to nod as though he does. The fact that he’ll be in Brigid in a few days time doesn’t even feel real yet, much less nerve wracking.

“I haven’t seen you much lately, but Sylvain likes to give me progress reports. He talks about you like a proud parent, I swear.”

At this, Bernadetta’s face does something complicated. 

“Ahah, h-he does? That’s, uhm, very sweet of him!” Her voice shifts abruptly to something strangely intense, “He doesn’t give you updates about anything... _creative_ , though, right?”

Felix has no idea what she’s getting at.

“I have no idea what you’re getting at,” Felix says, squinting. “Mostly he'll tell me that you ordered lunch for yourself or something and then complain that you won’t weave a tapestry of him shirtless on his horse.” 

“I'm pretty sure he was joking about that,” Felix adds, after a moment, because Goddess, Felix hopes he was joking about that.

This appears to be the right answer, because the unsettling gleam goes out of Bernadetta’s eyes.

“Ha! Well joke’s on him because he teased me enough about it that I really made one. Or it’s not done yet, and it’s not a tapestry, but- here, just look,” she says, fishing a second, smaller project out of her bag. 

Felix was born to the second richest family in Faerghus. He’s seen plenty of art in his life, and it’s never really done anything for him. _This_ , on the other hand.

The embroidered portrait Bernadetta hands him is skilled, to be sure, but also objectively ridiculous. She’s stitched each one of Sylvain's (comically exaggerated) abs individually. There are scantily clad women swooning dramatically at his feet. The _horse_ , somehow, looks smug. 

It doesn’t matter that nothing above Sylvain’s nose has been stitched in yet, it is the best thing he’s ever seen.

“Bernadetta, he’s going to _shit kittens_ when he sees this. Even odds he keeps this in the front foyer or framed on his desk.” 

“Aww, _Felix_ -” Bernadetta starts, heartfelt, and in his mind, Felix is thinking she’ll deny her obvious talent and humor, or perhaps thank him for the compliment. He’s wholly unprepared when she says, instead, “it’s been so long since I saw that goofy smile!” 

It freezes on his face, suddenly brittle now that it’s been acknowledged. 

“Yeah,” he says, a little hoarse, “I’m ah, I’m working on that.” 

+++

Felix doesn’t have much reason to smile for the rest of their journey. 

The rain starts before they’re even halfway to Arianrhod, and adjusting to normal travel has proven unpleasant. They’d all gotten used to the strange way that time flowed around their professor, allowing for uncannily fast travel between battlefields. (Felix figured it was probably a side effect of the whole goddess-merging thing? But if anyone was going to have a homegrown affinity for disrupting time, it _would_ be Byleth.)

After a day of enduring his steadily worsening mood, Bernadetta swaps seats with Ignatz to ride with Dorothea and Petra instead of with him. It stings more than he cares to admit, but some days he feels like he would chew off his own leg to get away from himself, so. He understands, at least. 

It’s strange. He knows Ignatz quite well in the ways that matter during war; knows the weight and rhythm of his footsteps, his unerring accuracy with a bow, his tendency to aim for the left side of the field first. But Felix knows him not at all as a person, which becomes abundantly clear when Felix mentions off hand that he never knew that Ignatz cared for art. 

Despite the rough start, Felix is relieved to find that they get along well enough. Ignatz well and truly does not appear to care how curt Felix is as long as he’s careful not to jostle his sketchbook, nor does he mind long stretches of quiet. When they are not silent, Felix finds that his questions about the history of Faerghus and its architecture are far easier to answer than Bernadetta’s questions about his childhood friends.

Still, no amount of tolerable company makes being cooped up in a carriage for a week pleasant. The towns they’ve overnighted in have all been small enough to lack proper training halls, and while forgoing sleep to burn off his excess energy with endless footwork drills has been keeping him alive, it has not much been keeping him sane.

By the time they arrive in Nuvelle, Felix is ready to skin a man alive, and he doesn’t particularly care if that man is himself. 

Felix has never been sailing before, but he thinks that the ship waiting for them in the port looks capable enough. More importantly, its top deck looks like it will be wide open once sailors are not running back and forth across it to prepare for their departure at dawn the following day.

Petra catches him eyeing the ship and clasps his shoulder. 

“This part of the journey will be better for you,” she promises. “The captain anticipates smooth sailing, and we can be sparring a bit to pass the time.”

+++

Though it is shorter, this part of the journey is decidedly not better for Felix.

Within minutes of boarding, Felix discovers that “smooth sailing” is not actually very smooth at all, and that sailing of any kind apparently does not suit his constitution. He can still see Nuvelle in the distance the first time he runs to empty his stomach overboard.

The crew is split between laughter and sympathy. Petra pats his back, Bernadetta brings him water, and Ignatz (greener than usual, but still standing) suggests watching the horizon. None of it helps. His only consolation is that he’s not the only one without sea legs.

He spends most of the remainder of the sail trying and failing to keep down his rations, miserably huddled up with Dorothea at the back end of the ship, where it allegedly rocks less. She mists up when he gives her his spare hair-tie, and he thinks, absurdly, that they've probably bonded more here than they did when they were literally saving each others lives on the battlefield. 

Though he wouldn’t have chosen to find out like this, it’s a relief to find that Bernadetta hasn’t held a grudge for his prickly attitude on the road. She keeps checking in and fussing over them throughout the day. It’s… nice.

Mostly, though, Felix passes the time by watching the water swirl below them, which is why he notices when it shifts from changing by degrees of green to a sudden, shockingly clear blue. Beside him, Dorothea has noticed too, and somewhat nonsensically points back at the water after a moment of stunned eye contact.

The shallow sea surrounding Brigid is utterly unlike anything they’ve seen in Fódlan, from the color to the fish schooling in it. Unfortunately, it still takes time to cross, and they have to pass the nearest (apparently barren) island of the archipelago, but it’s easier to ignore his churning stomach with an end in sight.

They put their feet on solid Brigid soil just before the sun can fully set on it. Thankfully, while some of the people milling about the docks stop and stare, the only ones they actually have to talk to are the four Brigidians Petra introduces as their translators.

The young woman assigned to Felix flashes him a brief, distracted smile before leading him to the guest cottage he’ll be sharing with Ignatz. Embarrassingly, she has to steady him by the elbow the whole way there because he’s still swaying like a drunk even now that he’s off that damned ship. 

She points out a few necessities, and tells him she’ll be back first thing in the morning. Despite the early hour, he’s so wrung out from traveling that he can barely muster up the energy to nod, so it comes as no surprise that he’s asleep mere minutes after she closes the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TAG UPDATES  
> 1) This chapter starts on a flashback to Felix seeing Dimitri (mostly) naked for the first time post-skip/pre-Gronder, and being horrified to see how poorly he’s taken care of himself. Dimitri is Dissociated during this scene, pretty severely underweight, and has skin problems due to wearing his armor 24/7; skip to “He didn’t actually realize” if you need to opt out of that.  
> 2) On a brighter note, the flashback also has the first significant hint of Sylvix in this fic? Like I tried to drop in little moments earlier, but Felix is still ignoring the hell out of his feelings-- anyway, it’s there & will get more prominent with time.  
> 3) Late in the chapter, Felix gets seasick. It’s brief, it’s not graphic, and it won’t recur, but I figure overtagging is better than undertagging.
> 
> Also, Bernadetta was absolutely 100% contemplating a double murder when she thought that Sylvain had shared her writing with Felix.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I opted to populate Brigid with a few OCs because 1) Give Me Brigid Lore 2) the Fódlan kids either avoiding everyone on the island or interacting with nameless Brigidians seemed Weird and 3) I looked at my outline and said "Hm, needs more Found Family in the beginning."

Felix wakes to the sound his own thundering heart in the middle of the night. 

The nightmare itself was vague, something slippery and dark and pulling him _down_ , but the terror is real, as is the brief but dizzying disorientation when he wakes from it. 

He has, for better or worse, gotten quite practiced at waking from bad dreams. He exhales hard, reminds himself that he is not in danger, and tries not to let fear rush him through the motions of untangling himself from the blankets. He’ll check the locks, he’ll get a glass of water, and then he’ll go back to sleep. Same as always. 

Unfortunately, as he tries to catch his breath and settle his nerves, he really observes his surroundings for the first time. 

His room is small, but clean. The flooring is... strange. When he first stands up, he think that perhaps he hasn’t quite slept off his seasickness, but then he realizes that the floor really does have a slight give to it. His mattress is resting directly on the soft floor against one wall, and he has two empty shelves above it. This is all unfamiliar but tolerable, except for how looking at the shelves makes him look at the walls, which are (bizarrely) made of skinny wooden panels. 

He places a hand against one, and while he has to press quite hard before it begins to bow under pressure, it has none of the secure solidity of the stonework walls he grew up in. The cottage suddenly feels less tenable than the tents they used to sleep in on marches. At least then he knew that there were armed guards patrolling around the camp while he rested. 

The window, set into one of the two outer walls, is even worse. There is a hinged shutter that he thinks he can close from the outside, and there is a fine mesh screen on the inside, but no glass. 

The fact that he has apparently been sleeping with little to no barrier between himself and the outside world does nothing to slow his still-racing heart. He doesn’t think he would have been able to get to sleep at all, had he realized. 

_Locks and water_ , he thinks. _Right. Stick to the routine, even if sleep is off the table now_.

He throws his sword belt on over the clothes he slept in, unlocks and opens his door, and pauses to really _look_ at the main room while he tucks the key back into his pocket. Seeing no immediate threats, he pads in, close to the wall. 

With a bit of daylight, he thinks it would probably look interesting and cozy, if a bit sparsely furnished. As is, the table and benches partially sunk into the floor to his right mostly strikes him as a trip hazard and another place he’ll have to check for intruders. 

Aside from the death trap dining area, there is really only the kitchenette that the translator showed him, and two squarish, dark shapes under one of the huge, open windows that make Felix’s skin crawl. As he creeps toward them, Felix realizes that it's only his traveling trunk and a stack of cushions. Frustration seeps in alongside his nerves; he certainly wasn’t in a state to carry his own luggage in, and it doesn’t sit well with him to owe a favor to some unknown person. 

_Whatever_ , he thinks bitterly. He’ll deal with it in the morning. He makes his way over to the door, intending to double-check the lock and be done with it. 

There is no lock to check. 

Even the voice in his head sounds pitchy when he thinks, _what the fuck is wrong with these people_. 

He knew that people were more lax about locking doors outside of Faerghus, but he can’t seem to wrap his mind around the idea of a front door being built without a lock. He feels... scandalized, somehow. 

After a moment of fruitless searching for a hidden locking mechanism, he gives up and just drags his trunk in front of the door. It won’t really stop anyone, but it will at least make noise if someone tries to get in. After a moment’s consideration, he resolves to unpack his trunk so that his belongings are at least in his room. It only takes two trips to deposit everything on his shelves. The finely forged silver sword he packed in his trunk goes underneath his mattress, near the edge. 

His heart has started to slow a bit, now that he’s had a chance to feel productive. All the same, Felix can tell that trying to rest is a fool’s errand at this point, so he falls back to what he knows. 

He fetches himself a few sips of water from the kitchenette, then pulls on his boots and sets out. 

+++ 

Time moves strangely in the dark. 

It probably only takes about two minutes to circle the building and shutter the windows, even with the extra care he takes to not wake Ignatz. Still, without light, every noise of the sleeping forest seems like a physical presence in his periphery, and he’s not sure how long it takes to process and ignore each one. 

He sticks to the paths, which are little raised walkways made of the same wooden slats as the buildings. He decides on taking the main path, which is broader than it’s offshoots, except for a brief detour to the (frankly enormous) bath house. 

There is writing that he cannot read above the doors, despite the shared alphabet, and he’s glad that no one else is awake to see him peek in each one as he searches for a rest room. The first two doors he checks both have gently steaming pools that look deep enough to drown in, but the third, thankfully, has a long row of stalls and sinks, much like the garreg mach latrines. He hasn’t seen anything to indicate if this is the men’s room or not, but he figures it really doesn’t matter if no one else is around. Either way, it is a simple but sturdy relief to open the nearest stall door and see a familiar toilet, after all of the nonsense with the lockless doors and glassless windows. 

That taken care of, Felix resumes his search. Most of the other buildings look the same as his own cottage, but there is a small string of buildings that he assumes must be smokehouses, given the smell. It seems awfully bold to deliberately light a fire in a _flammable_ building, but he’s coming to see that Brigid does just about everything differently. 

The sky is just starting to lighten when he rounds a bend and sees the largest building yet. Despite the early hour, Felix sees the starts of human activity here. Two teenagers are carrying a freshly caught- he squints, but can’t identify it beyond _mammal, probably_ \- between them around the side of the building, and an old man is doing something with one of the various potted plants on the veranda. All three wave to him, which he doesn’t know what to do with. 

The old man stops him on the way in, but it’s quickly apparent that they won’t be making any verbal headway without a translator. It takes an awkwardly long moment of pointing and gesturing, but Felix eventually gathers that the problem must be the mud on his boots. He makes a show of knocking the dirt off of them against the doorway, and waves a quick thanks over his shoulder as he makes his way into the building. 

He doesn’t pass anyone else as he walks through the halls, though he can hear the building waking up around him. Most of the rooms he checks are in a similar style as the cottage he’s staying in, very tidy and open and empty. He’s seriously considering just appropriating one of these unoccupied rooms for training when he comes upon an open door that leads down three steps into a large, well-lit room with screened windows so large that it's all but open to the elements on the far end. When he sees people warming up and stretching on the strange, soft floor, he feels about ready to fall to his knees in relief. 

When the people see him, their reaction is... different. He actually glances over his shoulder to see if someone has come up behind him, because he can’t imagine why everyone would stop what they’re doing to stare at _him_. Except nothing is there, so they must be. 

It’s been a while since Felix last cared about what strangers thought of him, but not knowing what these people think of him proves... discomfiting. _It doesn’t matter. They can think what they want_ , he reminds himself. He gives the dozen or so people staring at him a curt nod from the doorway and walks forward with all of the composure his childhood cotillion lessons can afford him. 

He drops into his usual set of stretches on the edge of the training area, and the ambient chatter slowly resumes. 

A young woman doing sit-ups nearby finishes her set and walks over with a somewhat strained smile and a wave. Felix looks up from stretching his calves warily. 

She asks him... something. At least Felix thinks it’s a question. He points to his ear and shakes his head, hoping that “I don’t understand what you’re saying” is clear enough in rudimentary signs. 

He thinks that the look on her face indicates that she understands that there is a language barrier, but then she asks another, shorter question much more slowly, which makes him think that maybe she didn’t get it after all. 

On her third and fourth attempts to communicate, she’s down to two syllables, but Felix still doesn’t understand what she’s trying to ask. Either it’s in Brigidian, which he doesn’t speak, or she’s asking about ore laws in Fódlaner, which doesn’t make sense. 

He is in the middle of shrugging up at her when his translator throws the door to the courtyard open. Everyone else looks immediately relieved, except for the translator, who looks livid. Felix, somewhat reflexively, scrambles to his feet as she storms over. Sit-ups girl makes a tactical retreat to do some more core exercises, and Felix wishes he could do the same. 

The translator asks, “Care to explain yourself, my lord?” with such barely controlled vitriol that Felix is honestly a bit impressed. And a bit cowed, but that’s easy enough to sweep aside. 

“I wanted to get in some training, and this seemed the place to do it,” he says, gesturing at the room with no small amount of exasperation. 

She looks caught for a moment on the precipice of incredulity and fury, before falling into a barely contained blend of the two. 

“Train all you want,” she says, after a moment, “but do not make _three separate people_ come running after me at the crack of dawn to beg me to talk sense into you. You’re an _ambassador_ , you can’t just go insulting people left and right-” 

“ _Insulting_?” Felix interrupts, voice tight with disbelief. “I assure you, you will _know_ when I insult you.” 

“It’s an insult to wear your shoes into someone else’s house!” she hisses. “It’s an insult to dismiss an elder like a child! And that’s not to mention that you insult _me_ by causing these problems when I am responsible for your-” 

Felix is about to take very vocal issue with the idea that he is anyone’s _responsibility_ when a heavy hand lands on each of their shoulders. He attempts to shrug it off, but the grip only tightens. 

The hands turn out to belong to a middle aged woman with silver hair and an infuriatingly mild smile. The translator turns to her with palpable embarrassment, and gets through, “Tara, I am _so_ sorry about this-” before the older woman waves her off. Her other hand remains firm on Felix’s shoulder. 

“I understand that we’ve had some cultural misunderstandings this morning,” Tara says with that placid smile. “Frustration is only natural. Why don’t the two of you put this behind you and go find Ronan to apologize, yeah?” 

Felix, who has never in his life known what to do with a good opportunity to apologize, spits, “Who the hell is Ronan?” 

It is gratifying to see a crack form in Tara’s stupid smile. 

“Ronan,” she says, not impatiently, “is a valued member of this household, who summoned me in a panic because he thought that he must have gravely insulted the new ambassador to earn such a rude response. You will remember him as the old man who asked you to remove your shoes?” 

When Felix doesn’t respond except to scowl, Tara’s voice tightens pointedly, as does her grip on his shoulder. “He will be delighted to accept your apology.” 

...In another time, with a different past, Felix might have opted to cut his losses and apologize. He’s certainly thinking about it, up to and until the point when Tara accidentally stumbles upon the same phrasing his father used a lifetime ago, whenever he would try to broker peace between his son and a boar in man’s clothing. 

His blood runs cold, and then unbearably, blindingly hot. 

Felix doesn’t exactly know what his plan is, now that he’s thrown Tara’s hand off of his shoulder and bared his teeth at her like an animal, but there’s no going back. Aside from the birdsong trickling in from outside, the room is resoundingly silent. 

Tara, infuriatingly, addresses the translator first, whose wide eyes are darting between them in shock. 

Her smile is suddenly genuine when she says, “Go have a seat, dear. I’ll take care of this.” 

“Take care of me? I’d like to see you _try_ ,” Felix snarls. 

Tara ignores him in favor of making a shooing gesture to the dozen or so silent onlookers. They obligingly clear off to the sides, sitting on the wooden benches surrounding the training area. 

“I’ll make you a deal, young man. Since you want to fight so bad, we’ll fight. Just a spar, but if you win, you can do as you please in my studio.” Her voice carries clearly even as she turns away to peruse the rack of wooden swords along one wall. “If you don’t, you fall into line.” 

She hefts two blades appraisingly, then nods to herself before continuing. “Swords only, a clean fight, first to three points wins. Fair?” 

Felix _knows_ that he’s being baited, he does, but when she throws him a sword, he still replies, “Fair,” before he’s even caught it. 

She takes a defensive stance in the center of the ring, he takes an aggressive one to match it, and they wait that way until the translator gives the signal. 

The first round is... underwhelming. 

She’s good, sure, but her swordsmanship doesn’t match her speaking presence. Tara is fast enough to parry most of his strikes, which is no mean feat, but he lands a nasty strike to her solar plexus in short order. It was a bit rough for a spar, he knows, but “delighted to accept your apology,” is still echoing through his ears in two voices and he needs to get it _out_. 

“Point,” he pants, even though he shouldn’t be winded yet, and she nods. 

When they step back to reset for the next match, Felix wonders why a Brigidian woman knows such a textbook Alliance style, but only briefly. If she’s trying to hustle him, she’ll throw the next match too, and then he’ll get the challenge he needs. He’ll actually be more upset if she _isn’t_ trying to hustle him, because she’s the apparent leader of this studio, which means that she ought to be the best fighter here. 

He wins the second match as well, albeit by a narrower margin. It becomes more obvious with every step they take that her footwork is too clean for the openings she’s leaving him. Definitely going easy on him then, but he doesn’t intend to let her win regardless. 

(Later, he will become aware that his annoyance at being handed a win is easier to handle than the red-hot memory she dredged up.) 

“Point. Are you ready to stop fucking around now?” he asks, when he once again slips her shoddy guard to land a hit on her torso. 

Tara’s eyebrows raise slightly before falling in feigned disappointment. “Surprisingly sharp for an oblivious young fool. I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t notice until I beat you.” 

She just shrugs while Felix reels at the insult. “Ah well.” 

“You haven’t beaten me yet, _hag_ ,” he says, once his anger has receded enough to speak around it. 

“Hag?” Instead of disputing it or telling him to fuck off or any number of sensible other responses, Tara throws her head back and laughs like he’s told the world’s funniest joke. On the sidelines, most of their Brigidian audience is clearly unsure what they’re saying, but the translator’s eyes look fit to pop out of her head. 

“I’ll have to thank Petra,” Tara says, mostly to herself, when she’s composed herself a bit. Then she makes a show of wiping her eye and dropping into a stance that Felix recognizes from an illustrated treatise on Dagdan infantry techniques. 

For the first time since arriving, Felix feels a spark of genuine excitement to be in Brigid. Shamir always said that she preferred to leave the sword fighting to Catherine, so he’s never had a chance to see how this style compares to standard Fódlaner fare. 

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get to see much of it. 

The translator gives the starting signal, and Felix has hardly moved into striking range when he feels the press of the blade at his sternum. If he hadn’t stopped awkwardly mid-step, his own momentum would have propelled him into it. 

Tara says, “Point,” with an almost straight face, and Felix wants to throttle her. 

Felix takes a breath, lets it out, and very magnanimously does _not_ throttle her. Instead, he moves back to his starting mark, and adjusts his plan from charging in to tiring her out. Felix is stronger for sure, thanks to his crest, but it doesn’t matter if she’s that much faster. He’ll have to rely on his stamina and hope that her impeccable footwork starts getting sloppy sooner rather than later. 

Tara smiles when she sees him take a defensive stance, and Felix realizes belatedly that allowing her to go on the offensive was a _mistake_. She backs him into a literal corner within moments, and once again presses the tip of her wooden sword harmlessly against his ribs. If the pointed restraint hadn’t made him see red, her shit-eating grin certainly would have. 

“Point,” Tara says, making no attempt to hide her mirth. 

Felix does actually know when he’s outclassed, though the knowledge does little to soothe him. Byleth was the last person to comprehensively thrash him like this, but at least they had the decency to instruct him instead of _smirking_ at him. They also had the decency to fight him as though he posed an actual threat, unlike this patronizing old battle-axe. 

“Stop pulling your punches and fight me,” he snaps. Tara’s smile falters again, but this time there’s nothing but confusion underneath. 

“...What?” she asks, clearly at a loss. 

“I said, _stop toying with me_. Fight me for real.” 

Felix doesn’t know why she looks so suddenly off-balance, but the part of his brain that still lives in a tent somewhere near blood-stained ground thinks that it doesn’t matter _why_ as long as he can use it. It seems unlikely that he’ll pull off a win, but he has a better chance if she’s off her game, and he’s good at working under pressure. Or, failing that, maybe he can at least save some face as he loses again. 

“You want me to- why would I do that?” Tara asks, with an oddly familiar furrow in her brow. 

“If you want to teach me a lesson so bad, I expect you to teach me something useful,” Felix says, as coldly as his racing heart will allow. “I can’t exactly learn how to survive a Dagdan attack if you keep treating me like a _child_.” 

He thinks she’s going to refuse right up to and until the moment she nods. There’s something in her face that he doesn’t quite know how to name when they circle back to center. 

...Felix isn’t sure what exactly their last match accomplishes, but it certainly isn’t saving face. 

There’s a brief scuffle where it seems like he might actually hold his own, but then her blade hits the back of his elbow, _hard_. Hard enough that he’s unable to maintain his grip on his training sword, and he knows that a live blade would have disarmed him rather more literally. He doesn’t have a chance to retrieve his weapon before another series of strikes throws him to the ground. 

He’s still trying to process the dazed realization that the soft floor is still hard enough to knock the wind out of him when Tara pulls him to his feet by the arm that isn’t pins and needles from fingertips to shoulder. 

“Point and match,” Tara says quietly. The room is still silent except for his hacking cough, and Felix can barely hear her. “Now listen to me young man. Petra cares for you, and because I care for her, I care for you too. But this studio is not the place for that attitude, and now you will _fall into line_ , as you agreed.” 

He can’t do much other than try to make the air sit more agreeably in his empty lungs, but his lack of argument seems to be agreement enough for her. 

“Come on, then,” Tara mutters, gruff and a bit subdued as she examines his injured arm. “Ronan’s a healer, he’ll make sure this isn’t damaged too bad.” 

“What,” Felix asks, contrary despite the rasp in his very newly regained voice, “are you worried you’ve taken out your only decent competition, hag?” 

Tara just stares at him for a second before she barks out a startled laugh. 

“Well, I can see I didn’t beat the cheek out of you!” she says, smiling again, this time in a way that doesn’t bother him so much as it... confuses him. Tara knocks a gentle fist into his shoulder before she spins him and gives him a firm little shove toward the door. “Get out of here before I give it another try.” 

Felix scowls at her overly-familiar treatment, but can’t muster up much heat. 

“I’ll be back first thing tomorrow for a rematch,” he vows, trying not to cough. 

Tara snorts. 

“I don’t doubt that. Now go,” she says, making a shooing motion at him before turning slightly, “And dearheart? If he gives you any more trouble, you give him trouble right back. Or come find me.” 

The translator, who Felix had more or less forgotten about until she stood to follow him out, nods enthusiastically at these instructions. They’re nearly at the door when Tara calls out to them again. 

“And take off your damn shoes!” 

Felix complies, but not without flipping her off first. 

+++ 

Communicating via translator proves difficult for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that Felix’s translator clearly knows everyone they run into. 

She greets Ronan with a hug when they find him tending a row of unfamiliar plants on the porch, then launches into a story without waiting for Felix to say anything that might need translating. Felix catches his own name once or twice, and Tara’s, and that’s about it. He stands awkwardly to the side while the translator _very obviously_ talks shit about him with the healer. 

Felix thinks he would appreciate her brazen attitude a lot more if it weren’t at his expense, but, he supposes he’s earned it, at least. 

At some point she must mention his injured arm, because Ronan’s wizened face wrinkles further and he reaches out to assess Felix's elbow. He clucks disapprovingly at the heavy blackish bruise already spreading under the skin. 

Felix has been healed by any number of different mages over the years, but Ronan certainly stands out as one of the more skilled medics he’s worked with. When the magic fades, Felix's arm actually seems to move a little more freely than it did prior to his run in with Tara, which is a pleasant surprise. 

Ronan nods in satisfaction and seems about to return to his gardening when the translator halts him. She levels Felix with a look that is vaguely expectant under all of the disdain, and he realizes that he is being prompted to apologize. 

He looks studiously over the old man’s shoulder, save for a few glances at his face. 

“Our customs are more different than I thought.” Felix starts, because at least that part is clear, if not quite easy. When he can’t quite figure out what to say next in time, he awkwardly lifts his boots to demonstrate that they are no longer on his feet. “...My lack of manners is no fault of your own.” 

He speaks in fits and starts, partly out of discomfort and partly because he can’t help but listen to the translator as she speaks over him in Brigidian. He finds that it's a strange and immediately unpleasant experience to have his own words mean nothing until someone else repeats them. 

Felix can only assume that the translator made some kind wise crack while relaying his apology, because Ronan laughs and pats him on the shoulder before picking up his discarded watering can. The truly bizarre part is that Ronan seems to _also_ mention ore laws in his brief goodbyes. 

...He should probably figure that out sooner rather than later. Felix waits until they’re back on the main pathway through the compound before he asks. 

Despite the fact that the translator’s hair is as dark as his own, Felix can’t help but think of Lysithea when she puts her hands on her hips and squints up at him. He wonders if there is a blood ritual required to compress that much skepticism into a person that small. 

“I genuinely can’t tell if you’re joking right now,” she says, after a moment. 

Felix bristles. “Do you want me to _apologize_ for not speaking Brigidian?” he asks, hoping it sounds even half as incredulous as he feels, “Sorry I don’t know the words to a language _I don’t speak_ -” 

“ _Orla_ ,” she sputters, skepticism boiling over into scorn, “is not a _word_ , it’s a _name_! It’s _my_ name, you _un_ believable-” 

He throws his hands up, glad to have solved the mystery but annoyed with literally every other part of the situation. “Okay, well, _Orla_ , I might have remembered that if I weren't preoccupied with _not vomiting_ during introductions-” 

“Wow, what a great excuse for not bothering to ask my name, _Felix_ ,” she says, rolling her eyes. 

“Has it occurred to you,” he says, “that you gave me no reason to think that your name was worth knowing?” 

There is a brief silence following this statement. If Felix were a better person, he might have an apology brewing behind his teeth rather than a storm of self-loathing to bite back. As is, he simply watches Orla's expression shutter as the consequences of his words catch up. 

“…I’ll know it when you insult me, huh,” she mutters, looking away. “Whatever. Let’s go.” 

She doesn’t look back to see if he’s following when she starts off down one of the branching pathways. Felix trails along behind, and his guilt, as ever, dogs at his heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eventually I decided that Felix was a lot more likely to say something profoundly mean than profoundly stupid, but my favorite scrapped outtake of Felix & Orla's argument at the end essentially went:
> 
> O: I bet you never messed up /Petra's/ name!  
> F: Actually, I have! Before she transferred to our class, I thought her name was Brigid.  
> both: ...  
> O: So wait, you thought she was Princess Brigid of Brigid?  
> F: Fuck off, it was a long time ago.  
> 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not dead!
> 
> The radio silence has largely been a direct result of Poorly Timed Optimism on my part, because when I was signing up for classes for this semester, I thought, "I can do it! This will be the semester that I no longer struggle with academics!" Anyway, have since learned that no one recommends even fully neurotypical folks to take multiple organic chemistry courses as part of a 15 credit semester. So uh, learn from my mistakes and don't do that?
> 
> Anyway, my uni extending spring break to cope with COVID-19 has given me a little time to sleep more than a handful of hours a night & get some writing done, so that's a surprise bonus to this fun and cool time. I broke ch 5 into two halves b/c a 6k chapter just seemed excessive, and who needs consistent pacing anyway?

After a quick stop by the cottage to retrieve his toiletries and a change of clothes (during which Felix sees that someone has unshuttered the windows & removed his barricade) Orla flintily informs Felix that he can either wash up in the communal baths like everyone else or take his soap to a creek, if he’s that much of a prude. 

“Is it really _prudish_ to want some privacy?” Felix asks, snapping to cover up the fact that he already feels embarrassed and the ordeal hasn’t even started yet. His whole face has got to be red. As if public bathing weren’t enough, Orla had also just informed him that the two baths were apparently only separated by _noise_ level. 

He’d nearly fallen off the path when he heard the word unisex applied to baths. Bathrooms, sure, even saunas, but no one was _naked_ in either of those places. He’s not sure he’s ever seen anyone truly naked outside of changing rooms or field hospitals. Certainly the only time he can remember seeing a woman’s… _chest_ as an adult was when he’d had to help pry up Ingrid’s crumpled breastplate so that Mercedes could heal the punctured lung and broken ribs beneath. It hadn’t exactly been a pleasant experience. And now, on short notice, he’s going to see _naked strangers_ who will also be able to see _him_. Felix can’t even suss out which part of that scenario is more off-putting. 

“In Fódlan? No. Here, _yeah_ ,” Orla replies, talking over his inner panic with the hint of a scoff. All the same, her frown softens a degree as she speaks. “Look, there’s a whole welcoming ceremony today, so you need to get cleaned up one way or another. At this hour, most of the people in there are going to be elders who will only look at you to know if you’re eating enough. It’s really not that big a deal.” 

Barring the occasional field medic, Felix hasn’t been naked in front of anyone since he was too young to dress himself, so he rather disagrees with Orla’s assessment. 

...Still, a creek doesn’t exactly sound more inviting. 

He lets a breath out through his nose. “You promise this is normal? There are no secret rules I need to know about- _shoes_ or what have you?” 

“Yes,” she says, looking skyward like she can find patience there, “I promise. Unless Faerghus bathing customs involve kicking and screaming, you’ll be fine. Go in, leave your clothes on the bench, get into the water, wash up, get out, get dressed. It’s not what you’re used to, but you have to admit that it’s not complicated. Oh!" Orla brightens as a thought comes to her, "Wait, so there’s a current, right? Don’t suds up where your bubbles will drift into someone else. It’s not actually a rule, exactly, but it always annoys me when other people do that.” 

“...Fine,” he mumbles, shifting his feet and trying to think of this as a challenge. Wash up, and pay attention to the current. Easy enough. He can do this. He can win this. Then he makes the mistake of asking, “Where’s the shallow end?” 

Orla cocks her head. “Shallow end?” 

Felix scowls. 

Orla’s dark eyes go wide like dinner plates, but to her credit, she doesn't mock him. She does however, look at him in thinly veiled horror. 

“You can’t-” she looks around, lowering her voice like he’s just confessed to something truly unthinkable, “you can’t _swim_?” 

“I _can_ ,” he snaps, unsure if he’s more irritated with Orla or himself, “I just haven’t practiced in-” 

It occurs to Felix then, that it’s been just about a decade, because Glenn was with him the last time he did any swimming. 

“In...?” Orla asks, after a pause. 

“In a while,” Felix says, tightly, while he tries not to calculate how many months and days and hours it’s been since that last swim. It doesn’t _matter_ how long it’s been. It doesn’t matter that it was mere weeks before Duscur, and it doesn’t matter that it was the last time he saw Uncle Lambert, the last time he saw- 

He needs this conversation to end. Saints and _flames_ , he needs this conversation to end, he’s not getting into that mess with her right now, he _can’t_ deal with that right now. 

“...Is there a reason you haven’t swam in a while?” Orla asks, looking concerned despite herself. Of course. Of _course_ she’s too nice to let it go, even though he’s been nothing but rude to her. 

He settles on an abrasive half-truth, as he usually does when he needs to escape the clutches of someone’s good intent. 

“Faerghus is _cold_ is why. There are lakes in my territory that never thaw.” She doesn’t need to know that it was really only the one pond on the Fraldarius-Gautier border that had a frosty skim even in the middle of summer, just like she doesn’t need to know that he used to love swimming but not as much as his brother did, just like she doesn’t need to know how much he cut out of his life trying to distance himself from the hole Glenn left behind. She doesn’t need to know _any_ of that, so he leans into a condescending sneer and desperately tries to kill her kindness before it gets any closer. “Learning how to fish yourself out of icy water before you froze to death was a necessity, not a _hobby_.” 

The budding pity on Orla’s face flakes off; she’s too mad to see his poorly concealed relief or dismay, which is good, he tells himself. It’s good, because she’ll leave, and he’ll have privacy to lick his wounds, even if he has to do so in a public bath. 

“Are you just _always_ like this?” she asks, lip curled to match his own. “The shallow end is by the stairs. You can’t miss it.” 

With that, Orla turns on her heel, leaving Felix to his own devices again. Rather than think about anything that’s happened since he woke up, Felix sticks to his plan and marches into the quiet bath to shuck his traveling clothes like they’ve wronged him. His hair tie and his fresh outfit go on the bench, but his shirt, pants, smalls, and dignity all land in a crumpled pile on the floor. 

_Maybe if he gets this over with fast, it won’t be so bad._

True to Orla’s word, there are only four older Brigidians in the bath. They wave to him as he walks down the wide stone stairs at the near end of the pool, but as soon as he awkwardly waves back ( _after_ he’s in up to his waist, thank you very much) they return to their murmured conversation without another glance. 

He’d be lying to say the warm water wasn’t a soothing distraction, but it’s not enough to drown out his thoughts. He minds the current, and he tries to mind his thoughts. He’s successful at one of those endeavors, at least. 

The more he tries to ignore the fact that there are naked strangers behind him, the more he thinks about Orla storming away for the second time in one morning. And the more he tries to ignore the fact that that's a perfectly reasonable response because he’s been an absolute _asshole_ to her, the less he can ignore the memories she inadvertently dug up. 

The memory of that day is bright and familial, and everyone in it is so _gone_ that Felix hasn’t been able to think about it in years without that same tired old chasm opening up in his chest. 

He was thirteen the last time he swam. It ended up being their last ever Founding Day outing. Tradition dictated that fathers and sons of the Fraldarius and Blaiddyd lines spend the day honoring the bonds that had helped to build their Kingdom, but over the years it had morphed into an excuse to drink in the woods and ice fish. For a long time, it had been Felix’s favorite holiday.

In 1177, Rodrigue had asked Felix if he wanted to go just the two of them, and the ensuing fight had been so vicious that he’d never suggested it to Felix again. And now he never _could_ ask again, which was a bitter distinction to make.

Felix shakes his head and scrubs harder. He can’t- he needs to function today; he can’t afford to wallow. There’s nothing to be gained from getting lost in his head, no skill to learn, and no end to it either. 

He goes through the motions of washing his body, and he gets out, and he doesn’t allow his clamoring thoughts to wander between those two times. He doesn’t. 

+++ 

Between sunlight and sheer determination to ignore his problems, his mood has upgraded to 'mildly disgruntled' by the time he lets himself into the cottage. Orla and Ignatz are standing with a shirtless man in the kitchenette, which is about as reasonable as it is comfortable, which is to say that it isn't. Felix looks out of one of the screen windows to avoid meeting their curious eyes. 

“ _Felix_ ,” Orla drawls, by way of greeting. Historically, this has not preceded comfortable conversations for him, so he purses his lips and continues to look away. “We were just talking about you. Tad here thinks you’re in such fine form today because you’re hungry. That true?” 

“No,” Felix lies, abruptly aware that it really probably is. “I’m fine.” 

“Really?” she asks, clearly believing him about as much as he believes himself. “Because Ignatz says- and these are his words, not mine- that you’re usually surprisingly considerate. He figures something must be up.” 

Ignatz, when Felix turns to glare at him, just bites into whatever he’s snacking on and sends him a mildly concerned look. Tad, the shirtless man who Felix assumes must be Ignatz’s translator, waves, which would be a more welcome gesture if it weren’t for the fact that his shoulders so broad and tan and _exposed_ that they make Felix want to walk right back out the door. He’s not actually any taller than Ignatz, but he’s nearly as broad as Dedue, and Felix just isn’t prepared to deal with that at present. 

Cornered, he’s about to insist that Ignatz has wildly oversold his character and doesn’t know what he’s talking about-

-and then his stomach growls loud enough to wake the dead. 

All three of their faces light up, and Felix thinks _Goddess take me_ with sincerity he hasn’t felt since his first stomach wound. 

“So,” Tad says with a smile, “You really _are_ just hungry! Well good, we can fix that. You should try one of my curry buns. Not to brag, but they’re the best.” 

Felix, mortified, pinches the bridge of his nose. “If I take one, will that buy your silence?” 

Felix didn’t really mean it as a joke, but the three of them burst into laughter anyway. 

+++ 

Three truly boast worthy buns and no small amount of teasing later, Orla reminds Felix that there’s a whole feast later and herds him into his room. Made docile with curry and carbs, he unlocks the door without complaint. 

Felix’s dress clothes are all built for Faerghus weather, with fine furs and wool stitched through with silver thread. He’s not sure why he even bothered to pack them, given how warm it is in Brigid. It’s a relief then, that someone- Petra?- apparently contacted his tailor and prepared a dress outfit for him. Orla hands him a pair of black pants, a loose-fitting white shirt, a _second_ white shirt to wear over the first, and a brilliant blue silk sash. She rolls her eyes so hard when he shoos her out to change that he’s half tempted to tell her that her face will get stuck like that. After he lets her back in, she spends an inordinate amount of time draping the sash just so under his sword belt, but allows him to wear his own shoes, provided he wear the black ones. 

It’s not a bad look, he thinks. Simple, serviceable, unlikely to give him heatstroke- it even reminds him a bit of his old dancer’s outfit, with the sash. The outfit he’d worn for the White Heron Cup was easier to move in, perhaps, but Felix thinks he prefers this one. It doesn’t clink whenever he moves, and it has the added blessing of actual pants. 

The whole experience reminds him a bit of getting ready for the competition and subsequent ball, but it lacks the looming resentment he’d felt as a teen. Here, a continent away from his feelings, there is no one he wants to dance with, and no reason to feel sour about not being able to do so. 

Orla’s business-like approach to primping makes it a surprisingly tolerable experience. Felix doesn’t much care for being treated like a doll, but he feels like he can trust the perfectionist glint in her eye. Really, the only snares are the eyeliner (“Don’t call me a _baby_ for not wanting you to poke my damn eye out.” “Then don’t act like one! Now hold still or I really will stab you. Not on- don’t look at me like that, I didn’t mean _on purpose!_ ”) and the hair, which she leaves for last. 

Felix wasn’t actually aware that it was possible to braid hair spitefully, _and yet._

When he says as much, Orla snorts. “Don’t give me any big ideas. I’m just making sure your braids look nice. People will be looking at them to size you up, and I am _not_ about to have anyone say that I don’t know what I’m doing.” 

“It's just _hair_.” 

“He says, like I didn’t see convoluted ponytail he walked in with,” Orla mutters, then continues on louder over Felix’s protests, “Look, I don’t expect you to get the cultural importance of braiding in Brigid, I just need you to hold still while I get your hair sorted.” 

Felix considers this while he blinks to keep his eyes from running every time she yanks on his hair. (He thinks he’ll die if she has to reapply the damned eyeliner.) 

It makes sense, he supposes. He’s never paid much attention to hairstyles unless it looked exceptionally stupid, like the ridiculous, ineffective ponytail Linhardt had worn back in their Academy days. But he’s certainly never seen Petra with her hair down, and since getting off the boat, the only people he’s seen with fully unbraided hair were some Fódlaners by the docks. Maybe he’ll ask Petra about it next time they spar. 

When Orla ties off the last of his five small braids and carefully combs his hair back into a high ponytail, Felix finds himself wishing for a mirror, but unwilling to ask for one. 

“Does it- do I look stupid?” he asks, reluctantly, as she steps back to inspect her handiwork. 

“You look way less stupid than you did earlier,” Orla says, a little mean and a little smug but honest underneath. At this, Felix feels some of the tension leave his shoulders. 

He can live with that. 

+++ 

Felix and Ignatz (but mostly Felix) are told in no uncertain terms to stay put while their translators get ready. Felix lowers himself down to sit at the little table while Ignatz putters around in the kitchenette, setting the kettle to boil for tea. 

It’s peaceful. Surprisingly so. 

When he left the cottage before sunrise, night had pressed heavy against the screens and turned the giant windows into wounds waiting to happen. All he could see was how many arrows would fit through that opening, how easy it would be for a battalion to storm in, or simply burn the place to ash. Now, clean and fed and having sparred a bit for the first time in days, Felix doesn’t mind them so much. He’ll still shutter them again come nightfall, but for now, the breeze passing through the room is... nice. The air has a pleasantly green smell, and the birdsong drifting in with it sounds fascinatingly wrong. 

Felix is wondering what he’d catch if he skipped the ceremony to go hunting when Ignatz sets a cup of Dagdan fruit tea down in front of him. It’s a good choice, and Felix tells him as much after a tentative first sip. (He burns his tongue a bit anyway, but he’ll live.) 

As they drink their tea, Ignatz maintains the companionable quiet. He seems surprisingly composed, and looking at him, Felix has the sudden thought that between the two of them, _he’s_ probably more nervous about the upcoming social event. Felix used to be a regular (if recalcitrant) member of the Faerghus court, and Ignatz used to run from the slightest hint of social interaction, but somewhere along the line, things changed. 

“Tell me I haven’t _already_ got a stain on me?” Ignatz asks, following Felix’s gaze without understanding what he was seeing. 

Felix has to actually look at the sash he was staring through before he can answer. Where his sash is a vibrant blue to match Faerghus’s banners, Ignatz’s is greenish Alliance gold, with a series of thin blue stripes along one edge. Otherwise, their outfits are nearly identical. 

“No, I was just thinking,” Felix says, which seems to suffice. 

Seems to, but doesn’t, apparently, because Ignatz speaks again after a moment. “I don’t suppose you were thinking about apologizing to Orla? She said you snapped at her earlier.” 

Felix chokes, immediately and ungracefully. Frankly, it’s a wonder he doesn’t get tea all over his nice white shirts. Ignatz watches impassively from across the table, which Felix supposes he deserves. 

“No,” Felix says, when he can, because he wasn’t. “I was thinking that war put a little steel in your spine.” 

Ignatz’s evaluating gaze doesn’t give away his thoughts, and Felix wonders if he can tell that war mostly just whittled him down to his fear and his skill with a sword. How obvious is it, these days, that Felix is full of holes? 

“Mostly,” Ignatz says, tipping his empty teacup this way and that while he looks for the words, “I think that all of the fighting made me realize how much of my life was dictated by what other people wanted, or what I thought I _should_ do. I figured that if I had to make terrible decisions in the middle of a war, they might as well be decisions that I made on my own. Decisions that I could live with, that might carry me into a future I actually wanted for myself.” 

They lapse into silence again, because there’s not much to say to that. It’s inarguably true, and Felix can’t even _begin_ to imagine what living that way would look like. His decisions almost always boil down to goals like survival, defiance, and avoidance. He’s gone through life caught between his obligations and a hard place for as long as he can remember, and the idea of making decisions for a future he actually _wants_ is... 

Well, it doesn’t much matter, when the things he wants have always been red and gold and out of reach. 

(As usual, he takes that thought and puts it away. Better not to dwell.) 

In its place, a dozen and one paltry apologies run through his head. He wasn’t thinking about it when Ignatz asked, but he’s certainly thinking about apologizing to Orla now. 

He’s still thinking about it when Orla and Tad arrive an hour later, dressed to the nines in traditional Brigidian finery, to escort them to the event. 

He thinks, and he says nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't quite justify putting the word hangry into a medieval-ish setting but by god did I want to.
> 
> Also, if anybody is interested in beta reading or just screeching about three houses in general, let me know? I only really use twitter to filter-feed FE:3H content, but I'm on discord a good bit c:


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lads, it has been a time. Take care of yourselves & please enjoy your latest installment of Felix Struggling.

The event starts boring, but quickly goes downhill, as most things seem to at this point in Felix’s life. 

The four of them walk to a great open pavilion at the top of a hill overlooking the sea. The structure is filled with a horseshoe of long tables, and there’s a small raised platform at the open end of the loop. The lack of walls means that he can see clear on through to where the sunlight is glinting off of the water. Now that he's not on a boat, the ocean doesn't seem so bad. He'd certainly prefer to sit in the sun for a bit and enjoy the view over attending some ceremony. Unfortunately, his lot lies in the shady pavilion, which already has a veritable swarm of people standing in it.

The crowd noise grows as they draw near.

Felix isn’t looking forward to politicking for the rest of the day, but he thinks he’ll at least have company until Ignatz and Tad get pulled into a conversation about art not five steps onto the floor. He tries to nod along for a moment, but finds himself immediately and profoundly out of his depth. Felix doesn’t even know where this Rose Madder Lake _is_ , much less how one would get red paint out of pond water. He excuses himself to wander the pavilion at the first lull in conversation.

Orla trails after him, pausing here and there to greet friends before catching up with Felix as he wends through the crowd and assesses the situation. After his second meandering lap, he’s fairly certain that the people gathered here are mostly harmless. True to Petra’s word, no one is armed beyond the occasional hunting knife or machete. The whole thing strikes Felix as profoundly weird, but he thinks he’ll be able to relax into it given time.

On his third lap, he tries to find a conversation to graft himself onto. But Ignatz is still gushing about art, Petra is nowhere to be seen, and Dorothea is holding court with half a dozen Brigidians fanned out around her and hanging on her every word. When Felix drifts closer to see what all of the fuss is about, he catches sight of Bernadetta hiding halfway behind Dorothea. It's good to see that she’s actually participating in conversation with strangers despite her obvious nerves.

They’re talking about opera, which draws Felix in, but the sickly sweet smile on Dorothea’s face drives him away twice as fast. She’s doing the same eerie, falsely-friendly thing that Sylvain does in front of a crowd, and Felix wants no part of it. Better to talk to no one at all than to talk to the facade of a friend. 

Interestingly though, from what little he catches as he and Orla walk by, Dorothea seems to be famous outside of her military accolades. Something about performing in an opera company based in Enbarr. It seems foolish that anyone would even try to compete with the Mittelfrank Company, but he supposes that such a big city must have had an awfully large demand for entertainment before the war. 

(Privately, he wonders if maybe he can trade Dorothea a favor for a song, some day. Annette’s songs helped get him through the war, but she’s not here to get him through this diplomatic assignment. It could be nice to hear some new songs, and he needs to get his hair tie back at some point anyway. It’s his only spare.) 

The ceremony begins before he has to actually strike up any conversations of his own, which is lucky, because he was getting bored of circling the hall. Orla leads him to stand around the back of the little stage, where he waits in a line next to his friends and a half dozen or so other sash-wearing people who he assumes must also be ambassadors, based on the translators standing next to most of them. 

Orla leans up on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “The King will give a speech, the speech will be translated, and then it’s feast time. Just stand there and try not to look so much like you just ate a lemon, okay?” 

Her instructions startle a little snort out of him, effectively lightening his expression. She leans back, looking quietly victorious. He’ll never have Byleth’s knack for making allies but maybe… Maybe Felix can salvage the mess he’s made of this. Maybe he should.

The thought is cut off by polite applause as Petra makes her way through the crowd to stand on the platform in front of them. Following Petra is an old man with violet eyes that match hers so exactly that Felix knows instantly that he must be her grandfather, and- Felix tries very hard not to do a double-take- _Tara_ , of all people. In Faerghus, it was common for prominent military figures to stand with the king at social events, but he hadn’t heard that tradition kept in the Empire or the Alliance, and he certainly wasn’t expecting it here. 

As promised, Petra’s grandfather does make a short speech after Petra announces him. Felix thinks that he must be a very charismatic leader indeed, because he gets a good first impression of the king despite not understanding a word of it. 

After the applause dies down, Tara steps forward, presumably to translate. She speaks with as much confidence and warmth as the king did. 

“As Queen of Brigid, it is my pleasure to welcome you to my home along with my King.” The room chuckles at some unknown cue, and she waits for the laughter to settle down while Felix waits for death to _strike him down where he stands_. 

Petra is one of his favorite people, and he’s even fairly certain that the feeling is mutual, but Felix isn’t _family_. He wasn't raised alongside these royals, and he hasn’t earned his irreverence here. The dawning awareness of just how badly he’s misstepped drips cold down his spine.

When the room quiets, Tara continues on with an unfaltering smile, either oblivious to Felix’s internal crisis or reveling in it. “In Brigid, we expect that each new generation will outdo the achievements of the last. From what my granddaughter has told me of our new Fódlaner ambassadors, I know that you will bring pride to your people, and prosperity to us all. Today we have prepared a traditional feast to share as we grow our bonds. Please enjoy it while we wait to hear introductions.” 

Then she repeats herself in what Felix thinks might be Dagdan, smiling all the while. 

The crowd begins to move toward the buffet tables across the room. In his mortification, Felix unfreezes enough to turn to Orla, who is, somewhat unsurprisingly, wearing a shit-eating grin.

“You knew,” he accuses.

“ _Hag_ ,” she mocks, visibly delighted. “You are _so_ lucky she likes you.” 

Felix doesn’t feel very lucky or liked, even as he’s seated in front of the most delicious plate of food he’s probably ever eaten. He mostly feels incredibly fucking foolish, because he apparently picked a literal, physical fight with the _queen of Brigid_ less than twelve hours into his stay as ambassador. 

And flipped her off. 

And called her a hag. 

Repeatedly.

_Ingrid can never know_ , he thinks, sullenly stuffing his mouth with barbecue pork so he doesn’t have to talk to anyone, and also because it’s _delicious_. Even meat this perfectly seasoned and cooked wouldn’t be enough to stop the never-ending lecture he’d get if Ingrid found out. Beside him, Orla tucks into her food with exactly zero sympathy. 

Felix is so caught up in his own embarrassment that he barely notices the enormous world map being unfurled behind the platform. But then, after most everyone has finished their food, the ambassadors are lined up by the stage again while Petra steps up to begin the formal introductions. 

The first ambassador Petra announces is a stout, red-faced botanist from Albinea. After Petra says some nice things about her accomplishments, the woman points out the approximate location of her village and spouts some pleasantries about friendship and trade opportunities before thanking the hosts. Her translator, obviously having practiced this ahead of time, repeats the same thing in Brigidian and the third, possibly-Dagdan language, and then they both step down to rejoin the line. 

The whole thing has the tone of every political event Felix’s father ever dragged him to as a child, which would be fine, if not for the fact that this is all the warning that Felix gets that he was supposed to prepare a speech. 

He is never not reading the itinerary again. 

This continues down the line, including the three representatives from Dagda (apparently all from very different regions, despite their eerily similar body language) and an incredibly tall man from the city of Morfis, which Felix had been halfway sure was a myth before today. Ignatz, Bernadetta, and Dorothea all introduce themselves without making fools of themselves, and then Felix is out of time.

Petra smiles warmly at him when he steps up next to her. He can’t quite manage an easy return, given how much of his focus is devoted to not bolting for the exit. 

“Lastly, but not leastly, I introduce you to the representative of Faerghus. My friend is an exceptional swordsman, and today I return to Brigid whole because we have for many years protected each other on the field of battle.” 

Felix, who was expecting Petra’s brief description of him to include some notes on his family’s legacy as the King’s right hand, or perhaps his notorious temper, barely has time to close his jaw before she finishes her translations. As is, he still forgets every single word he prepared while listening to the other introductions. 

In the stretching silence, Petra briefly places a bracing hand on his shoulder. It doesn’t settle his nerves, exactly, but it does allow him to let his elocution training to take over. 

He steps forward.

“I am Felix Hugo Fraldarius,” he says, pointing to his own surname on the map and trying to tune Orla’s subsequent translation out. “The people I represent are proud and resilient. Now that the war has ended, they are largely concerned with surviving our infamously harsh winters. Our king is concerned with forging a lasting peace, such that the people need fear no other conflict. To that end, I look forward to working with you all." 

Felix curls his fists around his chest and bows to the crown and then to the crowd, just like he was taught as a child. His speech was shorter than nearly everyone else’s, barring one Dagdan who was even more to-the-point than Shamir, and he has no idea if the pauses he took between thoughts sounded deliberate or just desperate. At the very least, he thinks it must have shown on his face how unaccustomed he still is to calling Dimitri his _king_ , but he gets the same polite applause as everyone else. 

Felix does not make eye contact with anyone as he steps down. 

+++ 

After the introductions, Felix knows no peace. 

For centuries, ambitious nobles had approached the Fraldarius of the day when they wanted to sidle up to the reigning Blaiddyd. Barring a few particularly friendly individuals, this had been going over more or less poorly for just as long. 

(As children, Sylvain once challenged him to find evidence of even a single a mild-mannered Fraldarius; Felix, eight years old and innocent, had gone straight for the corner of the library dedicated to ancestral writings, and opened one of Kyphon’s journals with sticky hands. Sylvain had barely saved said priceless artifact from a a teary grave when Felix discovered that Kyphon’s lines in _Loog and the Maiden of Wind_ had been rather thoroughly sanitized. Each and every single other journal they checked was similarly full of invective at one point or another, not infrequently directed at panderers and social climbers. Felix had been deeply distressed to learn that his family was famous for their sharp tongues, but Sylvain had laughed and laughed.) 

It was almost refreshing then, for strangers to approach him in an attempt to get in good with a different royal family. Or at least, it almost was, the first time around. 

Felix makes it through nearly a dozen of these transparent and invariably tactless attempts to get closer to Petra through him before he snaps. 

The Morfis ambassador makes meaningful eye contact and starts power-walking over the very instant Felix extricates himself from two Brigidian spiritualists whose questions about the Church quickly gave way to inquiries into Petra’s private life, and Felix thinks, _no, absolutely not_.

“Give him literally any reason not to follow me,” Felix tells Orla under his breath. She looks confused, annoyed, and then blandly friendly again all in quick succession as Felix escapes before the ambassador can reach them. 

Without a translator in tow, it’s significantly easier to brush off further attempts to start conversations with him. The room is loud, and whenever someone tries to flag him down, he just feigns deafness and keeps cutting through the crowd. He gets a few odd looks when his would-be assailant is too close to have realistically not heard, but he marks this as acceptable collateral damage. 

It’s not yet dark, but the sun is low enough in the sky to cast long, dark shadows in the trees. Felix steps into them and tries to lose the tight, shaky feeling in his chest. Looking out over the golden evening light, hearing the friendly chatter from a distance rather than right up against his ribs, he makes some progress toward that. 

Then, he sees a figure detach from the crowd and amble over to him, and the tension ratchets right back up. 

This does not improve when Tara comes to a halt a scant few feet away from where Felix stands frozen in place, and just looks out over the same view with a mildly pleased smile on her face. 

The two of them stand like that, quiet save for breathing, until the silence grows so wild and strained inside his chest that Felix thinks it will tear its way out if he doesn’t do something. 

“I wanted to apologize, for earlier,” Felix says, stiffly. He doesn’t know how to follow that up, so he doesn't. 

Tara, for her part, shrugs without looking away from the evening scene ahead of them and makes an ambiguous noise in the back of her throat. “People are so _polite_ to me these days. I haven’t had a chance to trounce a cocky young upstart like that in a while. It does my heart good, really.” 

Felix, for all he tries to reel it in, can’t help but sputter, “H- _Hey!_ ” 

“Oh, admit it, you had fun too,” she says, fond and teasing and turning toward him just enough to make eye contact with her stupid smile. Grinning like this, her laugh lines are deeper than at rest, but Felix still can’t quite believe that this woman is Petra’s grandmother. He’d guessed her to be no older than his father. 

The thought of his father sours something in Felix, and his next words come out a shade sharper than he was aiming for. “I think we disagree on what constitutes fun.” 

“Oh, I don’t think we do,” Tara replies amicably. “But I suppose I’m glossing over parts. What did I say that set you off, anyway?” 

Felix suspected it before, but now he _knows_ he’s making the lemon face Orla told him not to make. 

“...I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

She doesn’t roll her eyes at him like Orla would have, but the dry sideways glance she throws him has much the same effect. “I don’t either, which is why I’m asking you to tell me. I’d rather not repeat it, if I can.” 

It’s a reasonable enough request, but Felix isn’t sure how to give an answer without handing his whole self over along with it. 

Eventually, quietly, Felix says, “It’s nothing.” 

It’s not an answer, really, but it’s better than letting her expectant silence draw out any further. In Faerghus, it would have been enough. 

Tara snorts, unqueenly, but not unkindly either. It’s enough to make Felix bristle _again_. 

“Young man, I’ve been on this earth a lot longer than you have, and I’ve been upset about nothing plenty of times.” Her smile is smaller, this time, and a touch sadder. “This wasn’t that.” 

“If I tell you, will you _stop_?” Felix asks, peevishly. He didn’t come here to be the subject of any more sad little smiles. 

Tara considers this. “Probably not, but tell me anyway.” 

( _This_ insufferable, _smarmy-_ ) 

But Felix does tell her. 

“He will be delighted to accept your apology,” Felix quotes, drawling out the bitter syllables. By the time he gets to the end of the sentence, he’s more or less run out of venom. “My father used to tell me that, under very different circumstances. Happy now?” 

Tara looks at him some more, then looks back out toward the pavilion, where torches are starting to be lit. 

“Hmm,” she says, after a long moment. 

It’s not the _worst_ thing she could have said, probably, but it infuriates Felix nonetheless. 

“What, nothing to say?” he spits. “I _know_ that you know who he was and how he died. No platitudes about how he died in glorious service to the crown? No polite condolences about the _honor_ of knighthood?” 

_If she says one single fucking word about his father dying like a "true knight” he’s going to-_

“Offering condolences to someone who doesn’t want them doesn’t much strike me as polite.” Tara says, frowning and effectively derailing every script he might have had. “Besides, I am not from Faerghus. From what Petra tells me, you handle mourning very differently there.” 

“...I’m not mourning.” Even to his own ears, his voice sounds sullen and small. _Like a child_ , he thinks, uncharitably. 

“Exactly,” she says, making an emphatic hand gesture. “You are not mourning your father, who was killed in front of you less than six moons ago. I do not have _words_ for how strange that seems to the rest of the world, and I speak four languages, young man.” 

Felix, who only speaks the one language, and mostly seems to butcher even that, grits out, “What would mourning him even accomplish? Tears won’t bring back the dead.” 

What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t know how else they would have gained Dimitri back, if his father hadn’t- and it wasn’t a fair trade, nothing about it had been fair, but it had _worked_. It had _worked_ , when nothing else had, not love or money or any of the sacrifices the rest of them made in the boar’s name. 

Felix had prayed before every battle to survive the war, and he got what he wanted. He got what he wanted, and he refuses to bemoan the means that brought him to that end like a weak-willed, hypocritical _fool_. It’s not a truth he’ll ever be happy with, but Felix knows that he only outlived Rodrigue and the hundred thousand other men lost to the war because their mad king finally regained his senses and stopped demanding they march out on suicide missions.

And if the price to pay for that had been higher than he ever prepared himself for, then. Well that was no one’s burden but his own. 

And he doesn’t say that either. 

“What does _not_ mourning him accomplish?” Tara asks, while the two of them watch the sun dip closer to the horizon. They have daylight still, but won’t for much longer. 

Her question doesn’t sound rhetorical, but Felix can’t answer. He wouldn’t know what to say even if speaking weren’t guaranteed to drown him in the tears he’s barely holding at bay.

She looks over at him before he can compose himself, and of course she _sees_. 

“And here I was trying to apologize for upsetting you,” she says. For a minute, her eyes are too sad for her light, self-deprecating tone, but then she finds a more genuine smile before she steps back onto the pathway they’ve been talking next to. “Come on then,” she calls briskly over her shoulder, “Let’s go.” 

Felix masters himself enough to ask, “What?” 

“Your left foot consistently drifts outward when you lunge. We’re going to correct that footwork before you injure your knee. Ronan’s good, but he’s not a miracle worker.” Tara says all of this airily, as though it’s an explanation. 

“You want to- train? Now? What about-?” Felix looks back to the pavilion as they walk, still visible through the trees. He’s not sure when he fell into step behind her.

Apparently unconcerned with things like logic or social obligations, she shrugs. “What about it? They all know I’m an eccentric old bat, and it’s not like you were going to walk back in and be a social butterfly anyway. So let’s go.” 

He can’t help the watery laugh that startles out of him. It’s hard to tell in the growing shadows, but Felix thinks he can see her smile in reply. 

Still- 

“...If anyone asks, I went under duress.” 

“Kidnapped, got it.” She nods, the picture of solemnity in her ceremonial garb. “Should I menace you?” 

Felix sighs. “Haven’t you menaced me enough already?” 

For all that Petra takes after her grandfather’s looks, her laugh is undeniably Tara’s.

+++

Felix’s first lesson with Tara begins as any other. He jogs a few laps around the training hall to warm up while Tara deposits the bulk of her jewelry on a bench for safe keeping. 

She still refuses to go through the forms with him, even after she goes through the trouble of removing what must be five pounds of beaded necklaces and carved wooden cuffs. Felix is glad for the relative simplicity of his outfit, which was much easier to pare down to something training-appropriate. 

“I already did my workout for the day, and I can teach you fine from here. Don’t give me that look,” she says, swatting his knee with the back end of a wooden lance to correct his form. He’s not sure whether or not she’s using distinctly Faerghus teaching methods on purpose. 

It turns out that she wasn’t kidding about wanting to correct outward drift on his lunge. Despite his initial protests, she spends nearly two hours just having him repeat the same two forms in succession and minutely adjusting his left side at every step. 

Though the differences are down to centimeters, he does have to admit that something about the stance feels steadier her way.

He’s just settling into a groove when Petra pops her head in. She doesn’t look surprised to see them training in their dress clothes like a couple of fools.

“I should have known you two would end up here. I had to translate the closing remarks in your place, and now Grandfather is worried about you.” Petra directs the last bit to her grandmother as she steps fully into the room, who smiles warmly at the halfhearted scolding. 

“Thank you, sweetheart. Well, we were about done here anyway.” Tara turns to Felix, hand out expectantly, “Think you’ll remember all of those notes tomorrow?” 

Felix nods, but fixes his grip on the sword rather than handing it over. “Yeah- I’m going to practice a few more rounds before I head out though.” 

It seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to say, so it’s a surprise then that Felix finds a lance in his way when he tries to resume training. 

Annoyed and unsure what rule he’s even broken, he looks up the shaft of the lance to demand, “ _What_?” 

“Before you start in on ‘a few more rounds’, you should know that I won’t teach you if you stay up training all night,” Tara says. 

Her face is, alarmingly, quite serious, despite the utter absurdity of her words. 

“I don’t care for _jokes_ ,” he says, after a minute of trying on other explanations. “You can’t honestly expect to impose a curfew on a grown man. That would be- Petra, tell her that would be _absurd_.” 

Steadfast, reliable Petra looks away, clearly uncomfortable. Tara just shrugs and gives her lance one last flourish before moving to put it away for the night. “I won’t impose anything. Make your own decision.” 

Felix can’t tell if he’s more thrown by Tara’s words or Petra’s lack thereof. 

“Petra,” he tries again. “That would be absurd, right?” 

The tense line of her mouth wobbles unhappily first, but she still answers, “Would it truly be so bad to just... rest?” 

Felix isn’t sure where to even begin with that or the _yes_ he immediately finds on his tongue. Tara spares him the trouble when she loops an arm through Petra’s. 

“Come. It’s late, and our friend has decisions to make,” she says, patting Petra’s hand and leading her away. 

Felix, left standing with a sword in his hand and a ringing in his ears, thinks it’s awfully generous to call what he does next a _decision_. 

He only does what he's always done, until there’s no room for any thoughts beyond the burn of his overworked body. He's not sure how long that takes, but the island is asleep by the time he crawls back to the cottage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that comments make my day every time?


End file.
